Welcome To Mythological Studies
by Nitlon
Summary: The Cullens take an elective course...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The rights to the book series fall far, far, far outside my tiny circle of material objects.

"Why hello, general public. I'm Ms. Regence." I announce loudly, throwing open the door and striding in confidently. Luckily, on the first day of school, everyone is too scared to death to even think about possibly mentioning the subject of maybe talking at lunch next semester.

Slim pickins, this year. I drop my large, menacing looking bag, and seat myself firmly behind my chair. The wonderful thing about electives is that I teach the most random, loveable courses – being as in a school this small I pretty much teach the only electives, which means they're my choices – provided they're approved.

I take stock of my third period class: There's a petite brunette in the first row, wisps of bang swooping down her forehead like triumphant hawks. Bright eyed, bushy tailed and pale as all bloody hell. Next to her is a nondescript dirty blonde. Average height, size, clothing. Grey eyes. Fair enough.

After that comes another brunette, taller this time, just thin enough to be pretty. Just a t shirt and jeans, though she wears them confidently.

Behind her sits a row of boys. Directly behind the tall brunette sits another pale one, a red head, who is staring rather intensely at nothing in particular, flexing and curling fists.

I'm feeling less descriptive now. Suffice to say there's another pale kid next to him, muscular, and then a gorgeous blonde who's absently playing with a strand of hair. A few more kids are scattered here and there in the desks.

"I'm going to start off simple and easy. I only say things once, so don't expect me to repeat this, I'm going to grade you like the adults you are, but my homework won't be excessive." I'm met with the bored stares and grunts of children who've heard this part of the speech a thousand times over.

"Unless you really have something to say, shut the hell up. And if any of you –" I eye the perky brunette in the front row – the short one on the right. "- ever think of something hilariously funny about something I've just said, I'd love to hear it." This raises a few eyebrows.

"So who can guess what the hell we're doing today?"

Silence.

"Come on now. Don't make me start calling names at random."

No victims. Aw, shucks.

"Fair enough." I dethrone myself, circling the desk to lean on the corner, reading a magazine. Well, magazine is debatable: it's actually a science periodical…and it's about two years old. I just need it for the look of the thing, really.

Oh, look. An article on the world's smallest vertebrate. Any guesses? Yes, that's right, it's a fish. Less than eight millimeters long! Can you imagine? The creature's barely larger than its food.

Something on blood sucking parasites…well, that's appropriate.

An editorial on global warming…gee, shocker there. What an original topic.

"Ms. Regence?" Well, _finally_.

"Yes, Alice?" She stares me, shocked. What? I have ears. Someone called her Alice as they walked in.

"What are you doing?" I put the magazine down on the table, folding my arms casually.

"Well, I'm not going to teach people who refuse to learn. I have better things to do, you know."

"What are we doing today?" Blurts the other brunette, the mildly more tanned one.

"Well, I'm so glad you asked." She cringes.

"Today, we are going over the basics."

XXX

One hour later, and the students all look a mixture of relieved and disappointed when the bell rings. Papers begin to shuffle and binders are stacked on binders as they hurry along in their busy lives.

"I never said you could leave, people." They all freeze mid-escape.

"Your homework is to pick one favorite, or one that stuck out to you exceptionally, and give me three paragraphs on either it's history or how, conceivably, it could function today. Class dismissed." The tension in the air is released as the kids hurry off.

"Ms. Swan," The tall brunette turns back to look at me, as does Edward.

"I'd like to see you for a minute. I'll write you a pass for your next class." Is it wrong that I like the look of ignorant terror on her face? 'What'd I do wrong? It's been one day and I barely said anything!' I remember feeling like that.

"S-sure." She tells me. I note how she squeezes Edward's hand.

"Alone, please." I warn. The two exchange glances before he reluctantly releases her.

"Did I do something wrong, Ms. Regence?" Uh…no. You did something stupid, and I can't blame you for it, because then I'd just be a hypocrite.

"Ms. Swan…Bella?" She nods, coming to sit down again at one of the desks.

"You and Mr. Cullen…er, Edward Cullen…" Seeing as how there are two male Cullens in my class. I bet they all thought it was funny to take this course together.

"Yes?"

"You two are involved, are you not?" She pauses, unsure how to answer. I make an exasperated sound commonly known as a sigh.

"Bella, it wasn't really a question." I tell her.

"Oh." She replies.

We sit in awkward silence for a moment.

"And how long have you known he is a vampire?"

"What?!" She asks, voice going up a good one or two octaves.

"Bella, I am older than you and am also not stupid. Don't try to embarrass me by pretending to be indignant."

"I didn't –"

"Him and the rest of the Cullens, right?" I hold up a hand to cease her speaking. "Don't worry, it's not like I'm going to tell anybody. Believe me, if I told all the secrets I know…" Well, following a set of extraneous circumstances, the world might end. There's one thing.

"I'd just like to know…a few base things."

"Uh huh."

"They don't feed off people, correct?"

"Yes. I mean, no. Well, I mean, they don't feed off people." She seems a bit in shock.

"Clearly they aren't territorial. Hm?"

"As far as I can tell."

"Immortal, right?" What? I need it for comparison.

"Y…yeah…"

I smile at her. "That's all, Bella. You can go now." I hand her the pass I'd written. Gratefully, she tugs it from my grasp, gathering her books in her arms to shuffle out the door.

"Oh, and Ms. Swan." She turns her head a good forty five degrees to look back at me.

"Yeah?" I lean back in my chair, smiling the smile I only get when I know something's coming.

"Welcome to Mythological Studies."

A/N: Likely, it won't be continued. But the last line wouldn't erase itself from my conscious (and, on rare and extremely irritating occasions, subconscious) thoughts. Sorry to waste your time, ladies and gents.

Reviews feed my plot bunnies.


	2. Why Teachers Don't Have Social Lives

Disclaimer: I remain destitute of the rights to the series, a working pair of scissors, or any social or moral values. So there's that.

A/N: I'm rarely comfortable in new waters, so when I decided to go (very slightly) out my comfort zone by doing a Twilight fan fiction, I was unsure how well it would pan out for me.

I don't think I need to verbally voice how amazed I am that…well, that people actually read things I write. So thank you for that.

Seniors are idiots. Some small voice tells me I'm not the first teacher to whom this thought occurred.

"You're saying over half of you forgot to do your homework?" Blank stares. No, of course you all have a good excuse, a fine excuse, of course! It's everyone else that just forgot. No, your computer conveniently broke or it's my own fault for not writing on the board and who gives homework on the first day of school anyway? I mean seriously. It's totally not their like fault.

Seniors are idiots.

I take a seat behind my desk. It's a nice desk, dark cherry, an excess of drawers. I place my elbows on the surface, lacing my fingers under my chin to survey the lot of them. I'm met with vacant, dead eyes – some in more ways than one.

I grunt. "Raise your hand if you did do your homework." Here's a massive shocker: Edward, Emmet, Rosalie, Alice, Bella. Isn't there one more?

Ah yes, Jasper. Evidently he chose not to take this class. I'm unsure whether to be insulted or relieved.

"Fine. You five get full points for the homework, the rest of you zeroes. You can turn the assignment in tomorrow for half credit. After that, I don't want it anymore." I'm receive angry objections and groans, generally.

The generic blonde in the front row raises her hand in protest.

"But Ms. Regence! If we turn it in for half credit that's still an F!"

"Yes, but it's a fifty, which is considerably better than zero, do you not agree?" She opens her mouth as if in protest.

"Ah," I stop her.

"Those of you who did do it, you'll be presenting today." Sighs and groans. Teens do have a rather limited range of annoyed noises, don't they?

"Mr. Cullen."

"Which one?" Emmet smirks. Oh shut UP, you sparkly carnivorous faerie!

What? They are.

"Edward." I reply darkly, tapping my forefinger on the desk.

_Click. Click. Click_.

In a graceful movement he lifts himself from the chair, its feet scooting softly on the carpet. Several pieces of printer paper are pinched between two of his fingers, rustling as he makes his way towards the front. As he passes Bella, I notice a sign of affection clearly intended to be private: he trails two fingers over her shoulder.

"What was your topic, Edward?" He glances in my direction, shooting me a beautifully dazzling smile.

Good for you. You have all your teeth.

"Werewolves."

"Lycanthropy. Good choice. Continue."

He proceeds to recount the folkloric history of werewolves, a tale I've heard a thousand times and again.

So instead I people watch. Alice is staring rather hungrily at her pencil for some reason, and I note the dark circles under her eyes. She's a hungry girl.

Bella watches Edward, though I somehow doubt she's listening to him. Then again, it's possible she is…Edward's voice takes on a hard edge. He talks about how werewolves were and still are, for the most part, seen as cruel and heartless creatures. Hm. Ulterior motive, much, dear? Subtle.

He finishes. Next, before I can even call her name, Alice leaps eagerly up, paper in hand.

"Can I go next, Ms. Regence?"

"Uh…you certainly can, Alice." She gives a sound best noted as a 'squee'.

"I did mermaids." I pause.

"You did, did you?"

"Yep!" She grins at me.

I cough a few times, finally gesturing my hand. "Well, by all means, continue."

"Okay, so, if mermaids were alive today. Like, how they'd work and stuff. That's what I did. Is that okay?"

"That's fine."

Mermaids.

_Mermaids_?!

This is going to be a long class.

XXX

After school, I'm obligated to stay behind for an hour or two. Plan the next day's lesson, grade papers, write letters…

Eat pizza and listen to music…hush, you, no one minds.

So as soon as my last class has high-tailed it out of here for higher grounds and greener grass, I flip on my speakers. I'm opting for irony today. Nikolai Sarcevic: Soul for Sale. It's a good song anyway.

Standing, I begin to tap my foot to the beat, humming along with the tune – not an easy feat, mind you.

_And everybody longs for the back row,_

_Everybody wants control!_

"Ms. Regence?" I look up into the face of Edward Cullen, fingertips resting on the desk lightly.

"After three o'clock it's Cora." He smiles.

"Cora, then." He frowns as the lyrics turn to the 'I ain't gonna sell my soul' portion of the chorus. Well, that's unfortunate.

"Mr. Cullen, did you forget something?" He regards me coolly, ochre eyes searching my own.

I'll level with you, I'm getting a bit frightened of this person.

"What are you doing here?"

"At the moment? Well outwardly nothing. But at a cellular level I'm really quite busy." He sighs.

"In Forks, Ms. Re- Cora. Bella tells me you know what my family and I are."

"That I do. I know a lot more than that, Mr. Cullen."

"If I'm to call you Cora, you'll call me Edward."

"I believe that's my choice to make, Mr. Cullen." He lets out a small sigh.

"If you are here on some type of self-validating vampire slaying mission…I'm going to have to discourage you."

Did he really just say that, or am I having a vivid and horrible hallucination?

"Is this about the vampire cat in my car? Because I can explain that."

"What?"

"Nothing."

A/N: And I now I must proceed in figuring out how to introduce an OC without people growing frustrated with me for deviating slightly from the Twilight set. Emphasis on slightly.


	3. It's Tough Being A Mediator

Disclaimer: It seems unnecessary for me to iterate this, but I do not own the rights to the book series. I also don't own any useful random facts.

Not your problem.

-this-is-the-line-that-separates-the-story-from-the-other-…-…-stuff-

Eager to hurry home, and away from the overly curious minds of vampires, I fish my keys out of my purse.

Twirling them around my finger, I approach my car – the only one left in the lot. Is that true? I'm the last one to be leaving. It's really only about six. Slackers.

So of course, that stupid childish instinct that only I seem to have insists on washing over my common sense effortlessly. I start singing to myself, one of the Finches songs.

It's just one of those things that I do, that I've never learned to stop doing: singing in empty public places. It started with forests. I suppose I should be grateful to my eighteen year old self for being that naïve, else I'd still be as ignorant as the general populace when it comes to, well, you know, creepy weird dead things. And other…things.

"Hello, Chet." I greet the pacing feline in my back seat.

Now, why he's never actually bothered to scratch the living nightlights out of the seat, or just plain break one of the windows or beat his way out the bottom, I don't understand. God knows he's strong enough.

What? Vampires cats need love too.

I wasn't joking. Besides, I can't very well let him run rampant in the streets. Someone might notice the bloodless, dead mice! See. I'm doing a deed for the greater good. It's okay.

Also, he looks like a miniature cheetah and he's really cute and I wuv him.

At my approach he zooms over to my side, paws on the glass, mewing and scratching.

"Aw, it's okay, buddy. We'll be home soon. It's okay! I'm here now." I open the side door, letting him leap effortlessly into my arms. Luckily I can take my vampire cat out in the sunshine, provided I tell people 'I use a really good cat shampoo' to make his coat that shiny.

Alright, the sweet comfort of a fluffy kitten is lessened slightly when he's really just rock hard muscle covered in fur.

Closing the back door I click open the door to the driver's seat, letting him balance on my shoulder, then my upper back, as I take some stuff off the front seat. A few papers, a grocery bag, that's all.

Leaning forward into the car, I feel him unsheathe his unnaturally sharp claws, biting into my skin like cold steel.

"Ow! Damnit, Chet! Bad cat! Ow!" He takes this moment to use my back as a point from which to jump into the front seat.

Man, I liked this shirt.

XXX

"Honey, I'm home." I grumble, fumbling with the lock on my house. Well, cabin, really. You know those log cabins that people stay in when they're skiing or going on a wilderness trip?

I live in one of those pretty much year round. It's larger than average, and the indoor furnishings are considerably more than rough wood and paneling, but from the outside it does look rather broken down. That's how it was designed: in the middle of nowhere, and not to attract attention.

I finally manage to wrestle the door open, letting Chet leap off my shoulder and onto the aquarium, thoroughly scaring my Acei cichlids. And believe you me, it takes quite a lot to frighten a cichlid.

"Hello, Cora." Comes a voice from the kitchen. Leaving the cat and the fish to fight it out, I drop my coat on a dining room chair and head for it.

The sight I come upon is, well, different…to say the least.

Glen is attempting to cook.

Now, Glen can take on a herd of vampires and a pack of werewolves at once, he can tell you how to say 'Hello' in fourteen different languages, tell the time of day by looking at the sun, understand nearly anything just by looking at it, take the most impossible and unlikely situations in stride, and fix almost all problems with a flick of the wrist and a word.

But my god, the man can't cook for his life.

"Glen."

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?" A large, cast-iron pot rests on my electrical stove bubbling menacingly as he stirs its contents.

"I am making a cake." I just stare at him blankly.

"…You're making a cake."

"I saw it on a cooking show!"

"You were watching television?"

"I thought it would help make me more human." He smiles hopefully at me.

I sigh. "Oh, sweetie. That's nice." He looks delighted, however I smell something burning.

"Glen, it's burning."

"Is it not supposed to?"

"You aren't supposed to boil cake batter!" I cry, hurrying over and switching off the over before using a pot holder to move the pot to the sink. This whole time he stays behind me, watching every movement with calculating scrutiny.

I'll clean it out later.

I turn around, hands gripping the rim of the counter, to face him.

The calm look is back as he relaxes from his human form, once again allowing the default brown consume his body.

Perhaps I should explain. Glenwood, so named because the area in which his central territory eventually became the town known as Glenwood, is a…well, there are a few names for it. Tree sprite, wood nymph, forest spirit. He's been called just about everything under the sun, and more.

Making his default form rather different from that which you would expect. Imagine a body, well muscled but not overly so. Now imagine it covered with maple tree bark about half an inch think, allowing still for the shape of the body to show through his heavily armored skin. It covers his face as well, though not as roughly – more like a beech tree, smooth and thin allowing for all facial expressions to be made without difficulty.

And my favorite part: from his head, undulating backwards nearly a foot, are several thick roots. The shape of carrots almost, with graceful tapering curves that result in them meeting at a point that dips down, almost like tentacles. Just less slimy.

"So what did you find out?" He cocks his head to the side curiously, heated brown eyes staring me down, his hands clasped behind his back.

"About what?"

"Them." I frown.

"Nuh uh. First you practice."

He groans. "Fine." I step away from the kitchen, going to lean against the doorframe, arms crossed.

"What am I wearing?" He pauses, scrutinizing my clothing. He closes his eyes as if he were concentrating deeply, trying to recall the magazines I'd had him read. I wasn't sure just how to expose him to humanity, so I figured People magazine might be a good place to start.

"You are wearing…boot-cut-jeans?" He says each syllable slow and sharp, unsure of what he's speaking and its accuracy. Well, I'm assuming they're boot cut…that's what it said on the label. I don't really know the difference.

"Good." He looks further down my body.

"And boots…"

"With…?" I pull up my pant leg a bit.

"Heels…" I shake my head. He frowns.

"No?"

"No." He considers this for a moment.

"Wedges!"

"Yes. Good job. What else?" His gaze ambles up my leg to my shirt.

"A…short sleeve…" He pauses. "Three fourths sleeve?" I nod. "Buttoned shirt?"

"Close."

"Henry?"

"Closer."

"Henley!" I grin triumphantly and shove myself off the wall with a push of my boot. He knows more fashion words than I do, to be sure.

"And," He continues. "They are…tight. Tighter…than a man's clothing." He offers me, eager to please.

"What are you trying to say, Glen?" I ask him, mock-insulted.

"I only notice because I'm so deeply infatuated with you." I pause mid-pulling out of a kitchen chair to stare at him.

"What did you just say?" He shrugs nonchalantly.

"I saw in on the television as well. A man said it to a woman and it made the woman happy. I thought it would make you happy if I said it." Fluent in many languages he may be, poetic he is not.

"Do you know what infatuated means?"

"Yes."

"And you still said it to me."

"I assumed there could be multiple meanings!" He protests, scooting into the kitchen chair opposite me in one fluid movement.

I groan, flopping my upper body on the table and seating my lower body in a chair.

"My turn now." He utters. I sit up, supporting my head with a fist, to stare at him full in the eyes.

"Your turn for what?"

"You know." I sigh.

"Fine. What do you want to know?" He stares at me.

"Well, how do they seem?" I just glare at him and shake my head.

"I don't know! Like normal teens. Nothing for you to worry about."

"That's it?"

"There's a petite female, a tall blonde female, a red headed male and a large, muscular one in my class. There's also another one. None of them seemed particularly menacing or troublesome."

"You didn't find out any conflicts?"

"It's been a week, buddy. They're not the most forthcoming of creatures." He sighs, running a hand through his 'hair'.

"The pack is growing larger as well." He sighs. "There haven't been this many for centuries." Burying his face in his arms, I notice a flake of bark chip off his bare back.

"I feel like I'm babysitting the lot of them."

"'Mediating' sounds better."

"Fine. I'm 'mediating' the immense and pressing and impossible to deal with conflict between the two currently most common supernatural creatures in the tri state area in an effort to keep them from killing each other." He groans.

"Again." He adds. He half-lifts his head from his arms to stare at me with big brown puppy eyes.

"Well, maybe they'll play nice this time." He stares at me for a few seconds, disbelieving.

"Cora, I have known you for upwards of ten years. Do you _think_ higher-than-average amounts of vampires and werewolves in a small area will result in them…_playing nice_?" He does make a good point.

"Well…look, at least you know about them this time. I'll figure out if something is about to go horribly wrong. After all, that's why you're here with me." He smiles a bit and shakes his head.

"I'm not sure which group I dislike more." He holds both his hands out in front of him, as if weighing options.

"One the one hand," He says, wiggling the fingers on his left appendage, "they stole my spirit wolves to use for their own purposes. Though they were good purposes, I did love my wolves." The werewolves, he's talking about.

"And on the other, they" – the vampires – "are always taking my animals for food, putting an extra strain on my forests' ecosystems." The way he says 'ecosystems' belies how very many languages he speaks, a bit of accent slipping: he pronounces it 'echo-systems'.

"They're doing the best they can with a difficult situation!" I tell him, trying to sway his opinion.

He looks at me for a quiet, hushed moment before rising to his full height, coming to stand in front of me, leaning one hand on the table. He stares down and I stare up, resisting the urge to cower in sight of this magnificent creature. He says nothing for a while, finally parting his lips to whisper something to me, inhuman voice delicately humming the air.

"Then why do I feel the need to protect them?"

A/N: Apologize for the lack of the book characters in this chapter, but it was necessary (for obvious reasons, I should hope). In theory the next chapter will be more interesting…beyond that, I have no idea. I suppose we'll see, won't we?

Sidebar, 'cause of I forgot to put this in my other story and I REALLY don't feel like editing it for some reason: What color should Johnny's (Joanna's) eyes be? Or, if you haven't read that story, I would appreciate random eye color suggestions. Because brown just doesn't work.


	4. Get Behind The Fern And No One Gets Hurt

A/N: Just a random Blood Ties reference, for anyone who'll get it: I'm actually drinking jasmine tea right now xD. Mm, death.

Now say hello to the only preplanned chapter I've ever written!

-Three boring and uneventful weeks later, in which there wasn't even a Monday off and nobody even had to stay home sick or ANYTHING-

"Glen, quit it!"

"This bothers you?"

"It tickles. I'm grading papers and – Glen!" He runs a smooth hand down my leg, pushing up the pant material to trace the line of my calf. Despite however many years of his existence, they've all been in a forest.

By himself.

For thousands. And thousands. And thousands. Of years. Now, that is the very _definition_ of social retardation.

I kick my foot out of his grasp, and he turns burnt sienna eyes to my face, an amused smile dancing on his lips.

"You humans are so funny," he murmurs. He leans forward, so as to put his arm around my shoulders, snaking over my collarbone to pull me against his chest.

He places a hand on mine.

"Your hearts always beat-beat-beating," He whispers, drumming my chest with his hands in time with his words.

"And your muscles always pump-pump-pumping…" He once again eyes the shadow of a muscle on my still-exposed calf.

"Your brains always tick-tick-ticking." He finishes, tucking a strand of my hair back to expose my temple.

"You never stop for anything beautiful. Rushing through life, never taking the time to enjoy the moments you have…" He mutters. Well, I thought he was finished. He still has yet to release me from his planty grip of steel, meaning that I am in effect lying down on a tree.

"You go through your whole lives like that, don't you?…

Was there always inclination? Always constant tarrying? Stalling, stalling, stalling…

Or carrying, carrying, carrying?" He chuckles.

"What's that?"

"I found it on a notebook someone left near La Push." He explains. No one says anything for a little as I go back to trying distractedly to read Rosalie's paper on (shocker here) vampire folklore.

"Plants spend their entire lives in one spot. We understand the value of patience."

"Well, sorry for not living up to your photosynthetic standards." I grumble, trying to pull away. He doesn't let me, pulling me back before I've even freed myself of his hands.

"I never said I didn't like my animals. You are, after all," He breathes into my hair, "very amusing."

"Well good to know that the entire Kingdom Animalia has one use." I reply bitterly.

"Oh, don't be so modest, Cor!" He laughs softly.

Until I met Glen, I thought the expression 'laughter like silver bells' made no sense.

"You also produce necessary carbon dioxide!" He tells me, breathing a fresh breath of oxygen into my face before releasing me.

"You're so much younger than me sometimes." He eyes me carefully.

"Excuse me, which one of us predates _Jesus_?"

"Ha!" I snort, scooting over to the other side of the couch. From this angle, if you look at him just right, he could pass for a very personable tree.

Just as a vampire is a creature of night, a wood nymph is a creature of sun. Physically, he needs it – seeing as he doesn't eat food. Though he's supposed to draw strength from the forest he controls – the one, that is, whose energy he channels.

Well, channels doesn't do the term justice.

"Flowing," He described it once. "I feel every sapling that sprouts, every great oak that crashes, every leaf that flutters to the ground. If an old plant is dying, I transfer its remaining energy to a struggling yearling. It's more than a rush, more than a high, Cor. Imagine knowing that you're as powerful as a volcano. The most beautiful sense of awareness – Cora, I have the strength of a thousand trees, the weakness of a thousand helpless moths, the bravery of a thousand wolves. I'm not connected to the forest. I am the forest." To this day, I remember his speech word for word.

Making a note in the side bar of the paper with my Red Pen Of Doom (they were on sale, I couldn't help it), I curl my feet under me. I settle myself further into a pillow, the denim of the couch sighing as it makes room for me.

There's a knock on the door.

"Glen?" I glare at him, but am met with the blank stare of a plant.

"Yes?"

"Are you trying to get back at me or something?"

"By doing what?"

"There isn't anyone at the door, is there?" He frowns, shifting slightly, cocking his head to the side. I note as one of the roots on his head twitches slightly, dipping its point upwards like an antenna.

"The white pine outside your house says there is." He tells me.

"You talked to –"

"It's not only the walls that have ears, Cora." He snickers. "Or should I say Ms. Regence?"

I stiffen.

Hurrying to the door, I quickly flip open the peephole to see a magnified and distorted version of Bella Swan waiting impatiently outside, raincoat wrapped tightly around her.

"Shit!" I whisper, rushing back to the couch, pulling Glen up the arm.

"Hide!"

"What?" I start to push him towards the six foot tall fern I have next to the couch.

"Hide! It's one of my students!"

"Why do I need to hide?" He asks me innocently enough. I stare at him, because, frankly, it seems rather obvious to me.

"Because you're a _tree_ _man_!!" I whisper-shout, trying in vain to move him, straining against his chest, ramming into him. He stands steadfast. Trees, you see, don't have nervous systems, and while he does have a skeletomuscular system, it's actually, physically rock hard. If you were designed to control vampires you've got to be stronger than them…and vampires are _strong_. I can personally attest to that (thank you Chet, by the way.)

"Why do I have to hide behind the fern?"

"Wh-what?! Because you're a plant! She might not notice!"

"Can't I pose somewhere and pretend I'm a statue?" I glare at him.

"_No_."

"Why can't I just go human and meet her?" I glare some more.

"Because for one thing, even when you're human you don't wear a shirt, and what idea will that give her?" He gives me a blank gaze.

"She will think that I do not wear shirts?"

"Oh my _god_, Glen."

"I don't understand!" He protests.

"Just hide behind the plant."

"But I don't want to hide behind the plant." He informs me simply.

"Too bad. Get behind the plant!" He frowns at me, eyes now a rustic henna. He's large, by person standards, and despite my above-average height he towers above me, glowering.

"Please?" I add, tracing a line of bark on his arm.

The knock on the door comes once again, distracting both of us, which gives me a chance to shove him behind the fern before he can object further.

"Coming!" I shout, just barely avoiding tripping and further going flying over the coffee table, maneuvering my slow way towards the front hall.

I pause just before opening the door, tugging on my sweater. As an afterthought I put my glasses back on. I'm only slightly nearsighted, and for all intensive purposes I could likely get away without them…But the truth is that I love my thin, rectangular, gold framed lenses. I look so teacherly.

Turning the knob, I throw the door open, one hand still adjusting my glasses. I come upon the sight of a slightly damp Isabella Swan, wrapped in a plastic raincoat and shoed in some trainers.

"Bella! What a surprise to see you here." She coughs, offering me a half-smile.

"Hi Ms. Regence." She pauses.

"Do you need something?"

"Well," she looks past my face, as if looking for any visitors I might be entertaining.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

"Of course not. By all means, come in." I stand aside, motioning my arm for her to enter, which she does.

As she heads for my living room I put my hair up in a loose bun. I have perfected the young teacher look: stylish glasses, tamed cinnamon waves of hair, not-too-tight clothes. I pluck a stray piece of lint off my brown tunic sweater. You know, sleeves down to my palms, thigh-length. I think I got it at a blowout sale or something.

"Do you need to talk to me about something, Bella?" I ask, following her to the couch. It's Saturday afternoon. Not like I have anything better to do.

"It's just…well, yes…It's just not school-related." She admits, looking down.

I take a seat beside her, perched on the edge of the couch, knees pointed together, hands in my lap. I'm riding the furniture sidesaddle.

"Is it…uh…" I clack my teeth together in a mock bite. "-related?" She smiles sheepishly and nods. "I see."

She takes a big breath.

"Ms. Regence…have you ever…you know how vampires are immortal?"

"Very much so."

She tucks a brown lock behind her ear. "Well, what if you wanted to be that way?"

"By becoming a vampire, or by some other...means?" She laughs a little.

"I think you get it." Of course I get it. And I don't like where this is headed one bit.

"Bella," I ask gently. "Why are you here?"

"I just," She sighs. "I get it. I understand all the repercussions of becoming a vampire. I won't have children, I'll always look too young to drink," she giggles. "I'll have to drink...blood...and...well, just, I get it."

"That's lovely, dear, you ought to work in recruitment." I told her. "But if you 'get it' so, why are you here?"

She groans, leaning back into the couch. "Do vampires have souls, Ms. Regence?"

"Uh-" I freeze. I'm sorry, I forgot I'm wearing my Theology t shirt and Jesus Christ Loves Me hat. What the heck? How would I know?

This is a question for Glenwood, really. Immortality, souls, right and wrong. God.

That's his area.

"I...suppose...well, I suppose if you believe that people have souls there's no reason a vampire shouldn't..." I blubber uselessly.

"Oh." She looks dejected, as if she were sure there was a definitive answer. I don't see why there should be - there isn't one for people.

"Out of curiosity, why do you ask?"

She licks her dry lips, fingers playing over each other, contemplating her answer.

"Edward is afraid that if he turns me, I lose my soul. We...we talked about it. I just don't want..." She sighs. I hold my hand up, yielding the conversation.

"Oh, you two had _that_ argument." I grin. "I know _that _argument." I mutter to myself.

I swear the fern is chuckling.

"You do? Why, have you had it?"

"No." My answer was too quick and she sees right through the lie, eyes burning my face.

I stare at her blankly, a dark force crushing my heart in on all sides.

"Ms. Regence?" she whispers.

"I-I can't…" The words die on my lips, and I'm all the more aware of the creature behind me, hiding in the fern. Listening to everything.

Bella looks fixedly at me, eyes roaming my face.

"Did you have to make that decision?"

I choke on my breath.

"Ms. Regence?"

For once in my life, I wish that Glenwood were not here and that I was just a normal teacher and I were teaching English or something and that I lived in a crappy apartment and that my life didn't revolve around the supernatural and mythical and that –

"You did." She informs herself, growing mum from shock.

"Yes." I murmur. I feel, just barely, Glen trace a rough fingertip down my shoulder apologetically.

"What did you do?" Our eyes meet.

"I'm still deciding."

A/N: Did you know that there actually is a Glenwood, WA? Sorry. I just googled it.

Well, as I'm sure anyone could guess (and at least someone already knows) I'm much more devoted to a story in which I have some original characters.

Reviews feed my plot bunnies! Big, meaty, full of antioxidants reviews! Questions, comments, compliments, complements, criticisms and others welcome! I've also vowed to start replying to reviews now, starting today. Well, only if I have something to say. And believe you me, I'm plenty full of words.

Er, to the...two people, I think? Who read the accident chapter: sorry. All better now. And keep in mind this is sort of a time loophole in senior year before all that Volturi mess. I'm not a chronological person. Anyway, on that note, I'd just like to say that I hadn't realized the fierce loyalty with which these books are regarded. A bit over my head, really, making me think I ought to just call it quits with this story before I get too attached. By y'all!


	5. In Which Everyone Has A Very Bad Morning

I feel cold teeth of steel, jaws clamped over my body like a great dog, canines the epicenter of my pain.

Fire, burning, intense fire, blossoms on my side, raking its horrid fingers over my back and my stomach, extending over my body. Searing my skin, muscle, blood boiling as I feel the teeth sink further, wrapped around my body.

And further still until there is a CRACK!, and a splinter as my ribs shatter in the beast's mouth, my blood gushing out of my many wounds.

Choking down the cry I fear is the only thing holding me together when I feel my broken bones tear through my skin to the surface after the beast places a great paw on my legs to hold me still on the ground, claws biting into my skin, crushing every tendon and muscle.

The most horrid mix of pain imaginable as I sputter and cough up a mix of blood and spit, both the sting and the powerful throb as weak blood trickles through bruised veins, my limbs shaking uncontrollably.

I can no longer see what is in front of me, only try to focus as I cry out suddenly. Focus on the beast as, fully satisfied with the pain on this side, it tears its mouth out from my gory remains to go after my head, my face fitting neatly in between the beast's horrible jaws.

I smell only rotted meat, see only swimming black dots as the shredded remains of my left side spills out onto the ground – strips of skin torn off of my body like wrapping paper dragging on the ground as the beast tugs me this way and that, maws still clamped firmly on my head while I swim in and out of consciousness, unable to move any longer for the blistering, white-hot pain that envelops my body as I tremble, awaiting the sound that I know will be the last I ever hear in my mortal lifetime.

The crunch of my skull comes as a relief.

XXX

I wake with a gasp, arms wrapped tightly around myself as if to keep my insides from spilling out, my heavy breathing the only sound in my ears.

Rolling over onto my stomach I prop myself up on my elbows, staring down at the my pillow - blue, from the night filtering through my curtains.

I just watch it for a second, a minute, fifteen minutes – I don't know. I'm trapped in this surreal world, in which there is only recent past and immediate future – panting, staring at this pillow framed with my arms. I feel a drop of sweat roll down and over my back, a strand of my hair tickle my neck.

An absent tear slide down my cheek. The smell of hemlock and dirt and wood. Soft feet padding on my floor.

Distrait, I feel tiny objects on my calf, trotting up towards my head in a blur before snaking under the covers.

Pulling myself out of my dazed state, I turn to my side to face my vampire cat.

"Hey, Chetski," I mutter, gazing into his bright black eyes.

"You're a hungry boy, huh Chet?" Chet, so named after the first month of the Nanakshahi calendar.

Don't ask.

"Remew." He informs me.

"That's okay, sweetie, you can go get a mouse if you want." He gives me a disbelieving look before snuggling into the crook of my neck.

Instinctively I bring my arms up to cradle my little granite ball, combing my fingers over his sericeous body, silken fur complying.

I feel him start to vibrate, purring with alien fervor.

I can't sleep for the rest of the night.

XXX

"Immortality." I say in that loud voice that teachers use to inform you that class has already started without your compliance.

A hush falls over the room as students scoot themselves into seats and shove binders into desks or under chairs.

Turning around and grabbing a marker from the whiteboard's shelf, I begin to write on the surface.

"I…" _Screech_.

"m…" _Scritch-bump-bump._

"m…" _Scritch-bump-bump._

"o…" _Sca-roo-eetch!_

"r…" _Screech-fwump._

"You know what, you know how to spell it." I say, Xing out the letters I'd written before capping the marker and turning to look at them.

"Mort, death, being able to die." I tell them. I love these faces I'm getting!

Thought-o-meter:

'Huh?'

'What the heck?'

'This teacher is nuts, man. She's just f—kin' weird.'

Are probably the most common right now. With the exception of, you guessed it, the actual immortal people in the room.

And Bella.

This really was a scheduled lesson, I promise it was, like weeks ahead of time. It just happens to correlate with a certain conversation that I had with one of my students a few days ago! Coincidence, I tell you! Besides, it's not like I'm arguing for or against it.

"The prefix im-, meaning not. Put it all together and you get 'not able to die'. It's a pretty self-explanatory word." I'm getting angry, yellow-eyed stares from the entire front row. It's kind of eerie how they can all look at me like that in unison.

Maybe if I held one finger up and waved it from side to side all of their eyes would follow it.

"Who can tell me what immortality has to do with what we've been learning so far this year?"

There are a few coughs, students exchange glances. Finally, I see a pale hand sprout from the crowd like a tentative flower.

"Yes, Rosalie?"

"Well," she begins. "The stories of the creatures we've been learning about have survived for thousands of years in some cases. Many of them exist in multiple cultures on multiple continents that never could have communicated. The ideas of these made-up animals and beasts are immortal in our minds." She finishes, immediately looking down and away from me when she ceases speaking.

Silence.

"That…that is true, Rosalie. You make a very good point. But…" I cough. "The question was asked…in a more…literal sense."

Nothing.

"Anybody?"

Edward glowers at me huffily. Right, because you not answering my question would be the worst thing in the world.

"No one will even hazard a guess?"

Complete blank stares.

"It's not a trick question, guys."

Finally I see a hand.

"Yes?" I ask, exasperated and relieved.

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"Can you _what_?"

"Go to the bathroom." Okay, seriously, dude?

"Only if you answer my question." The child cringes.

"Um…"

"Seriously, it's pretty easy."

"The things we're learning about are immortal?" I wave my hand toward the door.

"Exactly. You can go to the bathroom now." He hurries so fast he nearly trips over a desk on the way out.

Crossing my arms, I lean back on the board.

"What kinds of mythological creatures do we know are immortal? Come on, you can just shout it out."

"Um…faeries!" I scribble it down on the board.

"Mermaids!"

"Trees!"

"Vampires!"

"Did you say trees?"

"Dragons!"

"Sea serpents!"

"Rocs!"

"You really were serious about the trees, weren't you?"

"Centaurs!"

"Gods!" I'm about two shouted answers behind on the board, whipping around and holding my hands up to cease the verbal attack.

"Okay, okay, good. Mainly, almost all of these creatures are immortal. Why do you guys think that is?"

Edward raises his hand halfway in the air, elbow still resting on the table.

"Do you mean physically why, or why do the tales portray them like that?" He smirks.

"Either." He frowns.

"I suppose we're so frightened of death, it was easier to imagine an alternative to it." he says quietly. I triumphantly hold up my finger.

"But therein lies the problem, folks! Immortality doesn't guarantee that you'll never die. Just that certain avenues for death are blocked – most commonly aging or sickness. Is it eternal life, or just eternal youth?"

I survey my class full of zombie- eyed students, already dead to the world, perk up a bit. Even the vampires themselves, as if the thought had never occurred to them.

"Jacques Cousteau once said that immortality does not present a possible means to avoid death. Mortal or immortal, an organism must die at some point."

Alice, in all her perky little glory, frowns and raises a hand.

Perkily.

"Why?" I smile. I knew I liked her.

"It's fundamental to evolution. If you're always creating more and never letting them die, eventually the pond fills up and there's no where for anyone to go, and you die anyways."

I slide into my chair.

"Your assignment tonight is to write me a rough draft on immortality. Should there or should there not be truly immortal organisms?"

Disclaimer for myself: I've only read the books once, because I borrowed them from a friend early fall of last year. To reiterate: I read each ONCE, all in SUCCESSION, SIX MONTHS AGO. They're also always out of the library. So if anything I end up writing is a glaring error or a clear violation of character attributes, I would appreciate being told politely. I'm not really accustomed to having people read what I write, and that first chapter was just the result of a little brain fart I had one day that I was planning on continuing, just not online.

Disclaimer disclaimer: Don't get me wrong! I loved the books! Just, I'm the cheapest person you'll ever meet and am therefore not going to buy _any_ books. Ever. When it gets down to 'buy used for 00.01' on Amazon, maybe. A library card is a girl's best friend.


	6. The Tactless Wonder

"PEOPLE. JUST BECAUSE THE BELL RANG DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN LEAVE."

They stop overtly heading for the door, even though I hear some sneaky paper shuffling.

Scriffle. Scritch.

Shuffle shuffle.

"Quit it with the paper shuffling. It's the last block of the day. You can all just wait five minutes before you drive home." I hear a few groans. A tree is beat mercilessly against the window by exceptionally strong winds.

Yes, I know, you all have better things to do.

I'm kind of tempted to take a ridiculously long time to do this now.

"If you don't want to know your essay grade until midterms by all means keep on shuffling."

Finally it stops.

"Come get it when I call out your name." I heft the sizable stack of papers in one arm, grabbing one stapled mass at a time.

"Cady," I hold the wad out in front of me for a hungry teenager to snatch.

"Robin," I list the names of systematically.

The shame about passing papers back is that they're in the opposite order in which they were given to me. The ones who passed it in first are at the bottom, meaning that their names will be called last.

Guess what happens.

Soon only the Cullens are left, idly tapping their feet or drumming elegant fingers on desks.

"Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Bella, Edward," The papers are snatched out of my hand impatiently. I've no doubt that they're all assured of their grades, but they are no less desperate to get away from school.

"Thanks Ms. Regence," Calls Rosalie.

"Bye Ms. Regence." Okay.

"Good day, Ms. Regence." Yeah, point taken.

"So long, Ms. Regence." Buddy.

"Au revoir, Ms. Regence." Guys, I get it.

You're all very polite.

Good for you.

I snort, grabbing the passed in work from the tray and putting it in a manila folder which I proceed to stuff unceremoniously in my bag.

Slinging it over my shoulder, I survey the room one last time to see if I missed anything. You know, any looming, massive, beasty type creature that might crush my skull with massive jaws or something.

Loose pencils. Whatever might arise itself.

Seeing nothing, I flick off the lights and exit, locking the door behind myself with a few mechanical clicks and groans.

XXX

Everyone has a secret, something that they know (or think they know) makes them unique, separate from the masses, a little thing that you'd never tell anyone but secretly…

Just a little…

You want everyone to know. For it to come out of the woodwork so that you become just so much more interesting. For a little fame. To show them up.

Well, guess what?

Mine is leaning up against my car, which I did not drive to school because I walked, and smirking at me.

"_Glen_." I say, warning.

"Cora." He smiles at me slyly, a tilt to his head, raw wheat hair tumbling in front of his face.

Did I mention his human form is inevitably shirtless?

"What are you doing here?" I sound very teacherly.

"I thought I would surprise you! I'm practicing being human!" He smiles.

"How did you get my car here?" My voice is laced with trepidation.

"I blew it."

I stare at him for a few seconds.

"You did the wind thing?"

"I did the wind thing." He answers, crossing his arms over his chest.

Stupid. Fucking. Tree man.

"Well, what – why?" I manage to stammer finally. The truth is that his human form…is…very…well, human, if you know what I mean. I personally prefer him as a tree – less intimidating, somehow, but all the more beautiful. Like an untouchable. An eerily perfect sculpture of a tree sprite.

"_Ms. Regence_?!" Comes the call of a girl, the crescendo of her footsteps in our direction telling of her intent.

I wince, my eyes squeezed shut for a second, willing either Glenwood or Bella away.

"Yes, Bella?" I turn on my foot to stare down at the dark little girl.

"You – um…you, ah-" She's at a loss of words, and I can't blame her. I know what I'd be thinking if I saw a (let's face the brutal truth) extremely muscular and tanned man my teacher's age talking to her. Especially if you know she's single.

"Bella, this is Glen. We've been friends since I was about your age." Not a lie.

Still in mild shock, she shakily and cautiously extends one hand out for shaking.

Oh jeez, Glen.

Don't bow.

Don't bow don't bow don't bow don't bow-

He takes her hand graciously, pumping it up and down once gently before allowing his hand to slip from her grasp.

Whew.

"You're…not…" She coughs, looking to me. "He's not…?" A werewolf? It's okay, you can say it.

I shake my head. "No. No, definitely not."

"Then why aren't you wearing a shirt?" She blurts. Her eyes widen and her hands clamp over her mouth in shock and embarrassment.

Kind of reminds me of me. Just, without the instant regret.

He smiles at her innocently, uncrossing his arms and unknowingly bearing the full glory of his bare chest.

"Because I eat the shirts."

She gives him a look. You know, the Look – 'I'm sorry, you what? What does that – what? What the hell?' look.

"You…uh…how?" She manages to hammer out a bare bones sentence.

His smile broadens and he continues to watch her with alien cocoa eyes as a thin layer of bark creeps up, like a fast-forward of ivy covering over a building, spreading over his body and his face, his legs – revealing every muscular curve, every graceful shape, the roots slowly extending from his head.

Like I said. Beautiful.

I allow my eyes to roam over the other-worldly shape that is so very familiar to me – almost more human than I, and yet completely the opposite.

Buttery sunlight coats his body, turning it a toasted gold in the late afternoon.

My god, the man can't keep a secret for his immortal bloody LIFE!

"If I go back human, the shirts disappear." He offers to a stunned and silent Bella Swan, whose knuckles had gone white on her backpack.

"GLEN! What the hell-?! Glen! Don't-!!" I sputter helplessly. The man has no _tact_. This is not a secret that you just reveal!

"You, you, you, you," She can't form a coherent sentence. Evidently she was not aware that the supernatural extended beyond werewolves and vampires. Though for me if you've already got more than one, any more shouldn't be too difficult to accept.

Allowing his true form to recede, he goes back to his human façade, turning to me. Why the shirts always disappear after being barked over, but the pants never do, I will never know.

"One of my werewolves keeps moping around in my forest. I don't suppose you know why?"

No _tact_ I tell you!

"Bella." I turn to the girl. All of this is really just going over her head.

"Uh…uh huh?" She continues to stare at Glen like…

Well, like he just turned into a tree.

"Why don't you go back to your friends now?"

"Oh-kay." She says, backing away.

Both of us watch as she half-walks, half-runs towards the Cullens who appeared to have been alternately watching us, trying to pretend they weren't watching us, or not watching us.

"The little one can see the future." Glen says simply and off-handedly.

"They…she what?" He turns to me and smiles dazzlingly, an inhuman and impossibly infectious gesture. The oddest mixture of innocent and dashing, naïve and seductive.

"I thought you might want to know. And the tall one, with the auburn hair, can read minds."

I stare at him.

"What?" He asks.

"You didn't think this was important to mention before?"

"Not really, no."

"_Why not_?" He shrugs.

"I assumed you'd find out, sooner or later."

I sigh. He just gives me a small little smile. 'Buck up, kiddo.' He puts a hand on my back.

"Would you like me to give you a ride home?"

"You mean…with the car?" I ask tentatively.

"_No_." I laugh. Of course. I can't help but wonder if he bothered to blow it all the way here just to lean on it.

I sigh, and on my intake breath I catch a trail of him on the wind.

The smell of hemlock.

And dirt.

And wood.

Just like a forest.

"Cora?" He asks, cocking his head to the side like a curious, foreign bird.

"Course I want a ride home." I mutter, smiling just a little.

And he himself smiles at me cunningly, terra-cotta eyes twinkling mischievously as he allows his physical form to be blown away by the wind, like so much dust in a intricate and swirling shape.

My own smile widens as I feel the same experience, a delicate tingling in my stomach that spreads to my whole body.

The ride in between is a surreal dream of swirling browns and greens and yellows, of tantalizing smells and sounds.

I'm never sure what happens during these times. Maybe I dissolve just like he does, maybe I float on the wind, maybe I just pop out of existence in one spot and pop back in another spot.

I just know that it feels amazing.

A/N: Wait, wait, wait. I want to know if anyone ever even bothers to read the author's notes. If you are reading this, tell me your favorite color of coconut, the prize winning food object you'd most like to eat, and why on god's blue earth you decided to name your cat Bob.


	7. Monkey Man

A/N: Alright, I learned one thing from these reviews: either you've all got great senses of humor, or terrible ones.

I'm going to go ahead and assume great senses of humor. If that's okay with all y'all.

--themagicaldividingline--

"Bella?" She smiles at me innocently, fingers laced together over her books. The poster child for good behavior.

A dark lock of hair dusts her face, wrinkled shirt bunched up around her arms.

"You want to…talk about…" I cough. She has remained firmly seated in her chair while the rest of the class flowed around her in a trickle of woebegone mini-angsters.

"Talk about…um…" Gesticulating randomly and with little to no sense, my hands speak shapes in the air that have no bearing on the situation.

"I do." I heave a great cetacean sigh, flexing my hand.

"I suppose Edward already knows." She shakes her head numbly.

"But can't he do the…mind…thing?" I ask, once again gesticulating like a massive idiot.

She frowns. "No. Not for me."

"Oh. Uh." I cough, rubbing the back of my neck with my hand. To some degree, I'd always known this would happen.

"But Alice knows." She informs me, a clever smile playing at her lips.

"So…you…" I sigh. "Do you have questions?"

She nods. "Considering how often it seems I'm having to ask these, I ought to just write them down." Ha!

"It's not really my place to answer them."

"But will you, anyway?" I shrug.

"We could just get Glenwood over here pretty quick."

"How?" She asks me, half-rising out of her chair.

"Just go shout in the woods for a few hours. You'll probably get his attention. After all, he's pretty much dubbed you 'vampire girl'." Not a lie. You should see some of our conversations:

'Did they turn the vampire girl?'

'Not yet, Glen.'

'I thought by now they would turn the vampire girl into a vampire.'

'Do you really want them to?'

'Of course not. The last thing I need is more of the smart ones on my hands.'

'The werewolves aren't dumb, are they?'

'No generalizations for the werewolves.'

'But-'

'Cora, what is ice cream?'

Seriously. Word for word. He knows everything about everything unless you count modern society.

"I'm not really inclined to walk around in the woods for several hours, Ms. Regence." She tells me scathingly, a glare threatening on the horizon.

(Oh no! Not a glare from a teenager!)

I snort. "Fine."

Luckily, I have considerably better forest sprite service.

"Glen?" I call softly, my voice floating on the wind, being carried towards the window before it bursts into tiny little waves that sputter in every direction, blown.

"Hello, love." He replies almost instantly from the back of the room, where I cannot see him.

No matter how many times he does that, my heart always speeds up a bit. Before turning around, I take note of how Bella shows no shock or awe that he arrived that quickly.

I doubt she has any trouble understanding the concept of otherworldly creatures with 'special humans'.

Spinning around in my chair, I'm mildly relieved to see that he has relaxed into his natural form.

The most perfect creature imaginable – so few flaws, when one would look at him you would think of him not so much as being born as being sculpted by the hand of an angel. Cheekbones sharp as cliff faces, jutting from his pointed face, a slim nose and slender chin form an angular frame around eyes of constantly morphing shades of outlandish brown.

Even thinking about them makes me feel as though he's watching me.

His frame is lithe though muscular, almost elfish in his stature, moving with inhuman grace and a mesmerizing unheard rhythm to all his movements.

"Hello again, Bella." He says quietly, tilting his head to the side as if to get a better look at this girl.

"Hello…Glen, right?" She smiles, sliding out of her seat to come towards him.

He himself does not advance, but watches her approach with a curious withdrawn air, as if the situation does not immediately concern him, as it likely doesn't.

"You had questions?" He's handling this with surprising grace, considering the first time I met him (conscious and coherent) he was nearly tripping over himself with social awkwardness.

"Mmhm."

"I don't suppose you'll just ask me my favorite color?"

"Well, I guess that'd be a start." He chuckles.

"Grey. But I reserve the right to pass on a question if…Cor-" I bounce my eyebrows to shush him.

"If Ms. Regence deems it unnecessary or too…personal." Clever boy, no?

She shrugs apathetically. "Whatever. So, what are you exactly?"

"Now Bella, don't tell me you haven't figured that one out already!" I interject. "I am _insulted_ as a teacher!" I place my hand on my chest, feigning injured pride.

"Well, I want to know what he calls himself." She turns back to Glen. "So?"

He pauses, running a tongue over his teeth. "I suppose tree sprite just about covers it. Forest god. Wood nymph. All of the above, really."

"And what does that entail?" His brown and black peppered eyes flicker to me in amusement.

"A lot of…stuff." He answers. King of the Vagues, bow down to his Royal Crypticness!

"Basically anything and everything he wants to do in the forest."

"North west forests." He corrects me. What-ever, man.

She pauses, eyeing both of us carefully. "'Kay."

She considers her next question for a moment.

"Why so curious?" He asks her, ever changing eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief.

"Because there aren't exactly a lot of myths about wood nymphs. In fact, it pretty much stops with Greek culture. There isn't much for me to assume."

He looks to me. "Well, she has a point."

I was a lot worse when I found out. I guess your first mythical creature is always the one that sticks with you, huh?

"What do you do?"

"What do I…do?"

"You know. As a job or for fun or as a goal or…a purpose."

"You mean like the wolves and their vampire task." She looks at him curiously.

"You know that?"

"I suppose it would tie into the answer."

"Which would be…?"

"I…" The perfectly etched arches of his lips curve upwards in a sly smile. "I mediate."

"…the werewolves and the vampires?"

"Indeed."

"And you do what with them, exactly?"

"Prevent them from tearing apart my forest, my people, each other or themselves."

"So you're like a plastic divider. Only a person."

I snort, I can't help it.

Ah, but now the lamb shall pounce on me!

"So what does that make you?"

I pause, unsure of just how to answer her question.

"Switzerland." I answer finally.

"Switzerland…"

"I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures." I answer robotically. It's basically my mantra at this point.

She chuckles a little.

"So what else should I know?" Glen and I exchange glances blankly.

He shrugs.

I shrug.

"Don't piss me off." He tells her before flashing a wolfish grin.

He rushes forward, hooking his arm around my waist, and zooms us both out the window.

XXX

"Put me down! Put me down put me down! I hate it when you do this! Glenwood!" I screech as he darts from branch to branch like an acrobat, one arm still hooked around my waist.

"Oh, you know you love it. You just refuse to admit it because you're disagreeable." He mutters, not out of breath in the least.

"Glen. Wood."

"Fine." He murmurs, crouching lithely on a branch that can't possibly hold our combined weight.

He leaps down to the ground, soaring really, touching feet first and still with an iron grip around my waist.

As soon as my own feet are on terra firma he lets me go, knowing me well.

Unfortunately, due to the dizzying height I haven't quite adjusted.

I feel my legs wobble underneath me, watch the whole landscape tilt to the side as I teeter to and fro, my arms waving out behind me in a vain attempt to steady myself.

"Whoa, there. Steady now." He says, quickly grabbing my waist and holding me still.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. It's fine." I press a cool palm to my forehead, pushing my sense of gravity back into my skull.

"So yesterday, you were saying about…um…the…the wolf…"

"The moping werewolf?"

"Yes."

"I do not understand why he's sad. I don't like it." He frowns, absently twirling a lock of my hazel hair around a finger.

I feel a wave of warmth wash through his body, a ripple of humanity changing him to the golden skinned man and back again.

"Maybe it's a puppy love thing!" I offer, smiling.

"Maybe." He answers simply, uncurling the lock from his finger and playing with the ends of my hair harmlessly.

"…that was a joke."

"It's a possibility. They imprint." He answers, still toying with my loose waves.

"So? You-" His eyes shoot up to meet mine.

"That's not the same thing."

"Well, who is it that is…moping so profusely?"

"He's not moping, exactly. Just…less than delighted."

"Again, 'who' called the owl." I snort, rubbing my dry lips together. I'm sure it's not necessary to iterate the pain of chapped lips. How the quickest solution to end the dull stinging is to lick your lips, even though that only makes it worse later.

And then you start to think about how refreshing chapstick would be and because of that you feel even more chapped and the cruel, horrible, stinging, evil cycle continues!

"Black, I think. Jacob Black. Has this…potential mope air about him. Like-"

"Something is being dangled in front of him and he can't have it and you're worried it's got something to do with vampires?" He nods.

"Worried that they…that…you remember when the vampires left?"

"I remember you being happy about it then sad about it." He chuckles.

"I believe it has something to do with the vampire girl." I groan.

"No kidding." I mutter, rubbing my sore lips together, wincing.

"Your lips hurt?"

"Yeah. I should probably by chapstick, but we both know I'm never going to get around to it." I grin.

"I could fix it for you." He offers earnestly.

I stare at him.

"No."

"Why not?" He stares at me, disbelieving.

Oh, how does one go about explaining this?

"Because – it's, well, it's like the tree equivalent of…of…I don't know what the tree equivalent of kissing is! But it's kissing, Glen!"

"So? It's to help you."

"I'd rather just buy the chapstick."

"This is much simpler."

"You're really going to make this into an issue?"

He smiles and shakes his head sadly, releasing my strands of hair and stepping away.

"And to think. You're the constant in my life."

A/N: …I have nothing to say. For some reason I get the gut feeling that this chapter will be received badly.

THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS.

Reviews feed my plot bunnies.

Other note: My life is governed by sarcasm. Take nothing I say seriously.

Nit, OUT. Hee.


	8. I Don't Wanna Go To Bed!

Pull up your sleeves,  
Collect your change and make it add up.  
Bring back everything you need!  
You never move, just stand around and count the pairs of  
Cherries falling from the trees!  
And a lonely man!  
I know it seems a lot like heaven,  
But child don't stop here!  
This is only the way  
To tears soaked eyes and years of achin'.  
Cut the rope and drift away!  
You must believe,  
Or make the curtain fall together.  
Down the alley in the breeze.  
But don't look confused -  
Those birds are only pleased with feathers.  
Turn your back and get your blue, it's true.  
Now I know their names,  
They taught to me that pain is losin'  
In someone else's game!  
She's an ocean away,  
Relaxin' in New English gardens,  
Pushin' up the daisy chains.

-New English by Ambulance Ltd

"What if I don't want to go to La Push?" I ask him testily while he, once again, steals one of my night shirts. All of my night shirts, you see, are really just men's shirts that happen to fit him perfectly.

"Oh not the grey one!" I cry as he grabs my favorite sleeping shirt.

"I could just buy you another one."

"Oh yeah? You and what money?" I inquire, tapping my foot impatiently.

He smiles at me mischievously. "People leave a lot of valuable things in forests."

"You…didn't…"

"Steal? Of course not. We have immense moral consciences, you know. It's really rather annoying." He smiles.

"Then why do you have to keep stealing _my_ shirts?!" I cry.

He doesn't answer, just gives me that Mona Lisa Smile that is so…

I hate the word mysterious. Alluring, maybe.

Alluring, even when he's in his human form. A few locks of dusty brown hair fall down in front of his face, ruffled just enough to be attractive.

I snort, exasperated, and stalk out of the room to grab a sweater.

And I'm sure I mishear when I hear the mutter:

"Because they smell like you."

XXX

"So you're saying that the werewolves know about you?"

"Intending no disrespect towards the vampires, but the wolves are considerably more attached to the forest. Meaning, inadvertently, they are more connected to me. I believe they knew from the get-go what I was."

"Well lookit you, using the phrase get-go!" He smiles.

"Thank you. I do try."

I just chuckle, deep-throated.

"So where are we going, exactly?"

He pauses, considering it, and I slow down the car.

"Quileute high school, I believe?"

"Uh..."

"What?"

"Because that's not creepy."

"You're a teacher and they all know me. It's fine." I just grunt, disbelieving, but nevertheless head for the school.

"And we're going to do what, exactly?"

"They will update me on the matters of their pack, I teach them how to fight better."

"Ah." He's more than a fighter. He doesn't fight, he wins. I suppose, to use his own words, being old enough to 'predate Jesus' gives you ample time to figure out how to deal with your given task.

FBFBFBFBFB

_"Don't go near her!" He screeched, slamming the creature into a tree with one iron arm. _

_The creature made a choked sound, unused to anything with enough strength to overcome a vampire easily, grasping at the appendage pressed against his neck._

_"Glen!" Cora cried, shocked at the gentle man's sudden outburst of uncontrollable anger._

_Tentatively, she reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder._

_At her touch he tensed, a wave of calm washing his exterior with gentle brown bark. _

_Eyes closed, he focused in only on her, not the creature that had threatened her. The one that threatened to kill the thing he'd only just found, the person he never thought he would. She for whom he had waited for eternity._

_A low growl emanating from deep within his chest, he opened his eyes, __ pupil less__ and washed over completely with a menacing off-white, to stare in the face of the creature pinned to the tree._

_"If you come here again," He whispered, low tones reverberating through the forest, "Make no mistake._

_"I **will**__****kill you."_

_Cora could not contain the small, helpless gasp that escaped her mouth and the pure and untainted venom in his voice._

_Taking his arm away, he let the creature fall to the ground before standing shakily, stumbling away without a look back. _

_Glenwood turned towards Cora, his eyes once again a human brown. _

_The girl regarded him coolly, an air of horror about her. _

_"You really were going to do it. You were going to kill him." She accused._

_Glen shook his head. The poor girl, only eighteen years old, not nearly old enough to understand the ferocious animosity with which he would protect his charges. If the creature threatened to harm the people in his forest, for no reason other than pure malice, then he had no choice._

_The animal would take over._

FBFBFBFBFB

"Glenwood." A russet man regards him with a careful edge, as if not wanting to anger the sprite.

Glen, oblivious to the man's tone, replies with happiness and fervor.

"Hello, Samuel!" He smiles, open and amiable.

"Just give me a few minutes to get the guys together." Mutters Sam, unsure how exactly to act around him.

"They should be here soon."

Glen puts a hand on my back, pushing me forward like a cat presenting a still-squirming mouse.

"This is my friend Cora."

"Your…friend?" He nods enthusiastically.

I give Sam a helpless look.

Yes, he really is just like this.

No, there's nothing that can be done about it.

I cough. "Nice to meet you."

"You too." He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable.

Luckily, that is when the Party Frickin' Brigade shows up.

I don't know how many Native American boys all pushing and shoving each other, laughing and shouting rude things, emerge from a direction I don't bother to note.

"That one, there," Glen mutters quietly in my ear, subtly pointing out an exceptionally tall and muscular boy that can't be more than sixteen or seventeen despite a buff physique, in the middle of the group.

"He doesn't look particularly broken up about anything to me." I tell him, hooking my thumbs into my jean pockets. He really doesn't. He's laughing and joking along with the rest of them, a vibrancy of true happiness emanating from his movements.

"I suppose it's rather subtle. Just watch him."

XXX

"If you lunge to my left you leave your side exposed should I manage to evade you." Glen says calmly, stepping with ease away from the great black beast's gaping maws and darting with a blur, ending up crouched on its flank, holding onto tufts of fur.

The wolf growls dejectedly, relaxing and allowing Glen to leap nimbly off.

"So when you do make an attack, you be sure that your hind legs are up front a bit, curving in the side facing your opponent. That means the only open side you have is as far away as possible.

The werewolf nods, trotting away slightly and turning around once again to face Glen with a cool determination.

A few minutes later he's pinned underneath the animal's legs, the wolf panting desperately, caging Glenwood in with titanic bars of appendages.

Glen, still not even short of breath, tut-tuts and shakes his head.

"Now what if I were to simply punch you here, right in the rib cage. Or lower down?"

The wolf winces at the thought. He wines curiously, as if to say: so what would you suggest, o great friggin' tree thing?

"Either place one or both back feet on my abdomen," he pats his stomach. "or pin my arms down with front feet, then you can have at my neck with ease and it's difficult to get leverage for my feet." He explains calmly.

"Try it." The oversize wolf places legs on either of Glen's muscular, thin arms. It looks as if they should break under the pressure.

"Good. I wouldn't try the abdomen thing until you'd practiced standing on objects that aren't very smooth, otherwise you might lose your balance. Try balancing two feet on a beach ball sometimes. You'll look like an idiot, but it'll pay off immensely. You're improving." The wolf snorts, but does not raise its legs from Glen's arms.

Glen lifts his feet under the wolf, bracing them on either side, and before anyone knows what he's doing the wolf goes flying backwards gracelessly, landing on it's ass a good ten feet away.

"Don't worry. A vampire can't do that." He consoles the wolf, who just gives him a baleful, yellow-eyed stare before heading off into the woods to change.

XXX

"You're Cora, right? Bella's teacher?" I hear a voice behind me. I'm perched on a rock I found staring out into the forest from a sloping hill, the perfect vantage point, waiting for Glen to finish up.

I turn around to see the boy that Glen had pointed out earlier, Jacob.

"Ah, yes. How did you guess?"

"She told me about you." Aha. So it's a Bella thing.

"I thought you'd be older, though."

"What? I can't be mean if I'm under thirty?" I turn to face him, pivoting on the rock.

Is no one here capable of wearing a shirt? I'm getting a complex.

"She never said you were mean. I was just surprised when she said you knew Glen."

"I see." I survey him quietly, trying to assess what exactly the nature of his relationship with Ms. Swan could be.

"How do you know Bella?"

"Long story."

"I see."

"You see a lot, huh?"

"That I do, Mr. Black." He grins at me wolfishly (sorry, I had to do it), coming to sit at the other end of the rock, cross legged.

"So what's with you and Glenwood?"

I shrug. "I dunno. What about it?"

"Why'd he bring you? He only comes like once every three months and he never brings anybody." Jacob smiles brightly at me.

"Are you insinuating something?"

"Should I be?" He grins.

"You first."

"Huh?"

"You and Bella."

"That's gross, man. A teacher stalking her students?"

"Not stalking. Personal safety."

He makes a face. "Safety?"

"Well, first a vampire now a werewolf. That girl has self-destructive tendencies." He laughs, a deep booming thing.

"You tryin' to say something about werewolves?"

"You tryin' to say something about wood nymphs?" I counter, tilting my head to the side like I've seen Glen do.

"I'd never hurt her." He says quietly, the smile melting from his face.

I see what Glen meant. Just beneath the exterior there's the shadow of a heartbroken fool.

"Jacob, right?"

"Yep."

"Well, Jacob, can I offer you some words of advice?"

"You can. Doesn't mean I'll take them." He grins again, but it's halfhearted.

"Half-having something is sometimes worse than never having it at all." He glares at me, but I continue anyway.

"The infection is more terrible than the cure."

"For what? Mono?" Oh, don't be an idiot.

"He's explained the whole imprinting thing to me, you know."

"Oh, and I suppose you'll be telling me I can overcome?" He punches the air with his fist in mock-pride.

"No. That I get where you're coming from and I know you won't believe me when I say it's easier to back out now."

"Ha!" He scoffs, drawing his legs up around his chest. "How do you know where I'm coming from, lady? Cause I never actually agreed to what you were inferring about my personal life."

"I'm nosy." I replied.

XXX

All I see is the black, a deep, penetrating black that seems to suck the very life out of everything around it. An all encompassing ebony that muffles the world.

But more frightening is what I can hear. A dull thud, a thumping as a body is thrown against the wall.

And roaring. Oh, god, the roaring, like thousands of rusty tin cans in a cement mixer shouting together. Like a lion and an elephant and a tiger combined into a single, terrible sound, the very essence of an unnatural beast solidified and converted into a sound, far worse than nails on a chalkboard.

But it stops. There's a dull, muffled silence and nary a sound save for my breath. In a sense, it's more terrifying.

Unaware of my surroundings, yet painfully aware that there's _something_, somewhere in this house. Something I want to avoid at all costs. The beast. And I don't know where it is. It could be coming for me, right now, behind me with its terrible teeth and its horrible, rotted meat breath, lunging as I think these thoughts -

I hear a soft padding, like a cat on concrete.

"Chet!" I cry, relieved. "Chet, get me out of here!"

But the padding grows louder. And louder.

Soon they are thuds, progressing to thunderous booms as the screeching beast tears into the room, my only shield the blackness surrounding me.

And then it begins to tear at my flesh.

XXX

"Cora? What are you doing here?" He asks me.

I've come to what I've always thought of as his sanctuary. He showed it to me years ago, but I've always made a point of avoiding it. It always had this eerie air about it.

A small field, a clearing, really. A carpet of soft green clovers covers the ground, with a knee-high tree sapling here and there.

A little patch of snowbells is scattered in the center, and it is here that he sits and, so he tells me, looks at the stars. I don't understand why, but I never pressed it.

The night is surprisingly clear for Washington, the stars tiny sprinkles of light in the night sky.

Moonlight washes the scene in a silvery glow, everything eerily surreal, like out of a fairy tale. Like it's out of place in the real world.

"I had that nightmare again. The one with the bear." I lean up against a tree on the edge of the clearing, wearing only a nightshirt that reaches mid-thigh. I put my hands on the tree, resting my cheek on it to look at him.

He rises from his cross-legged position, legs unfolding like an accordion, without the use of his hands.

Gliding over to me with a grace that can only be described as equine, he's soon close enough for me to see that his eyes are a familiar shade of hazel, the exact color of my hair.

"I couldn't sleep." I whisper.

He says nothing, just staring at me with empathetic eyes.

"I'm just…I…I just got scared. I didn't want to be alone." He smiles softly at me, still silent.

"I hoped you wouldn't mind."

He fingers the sleeve of my shirt, eyes on his hand. "You came all the way out here, dressed like this, to find me?"

"I told you," I murmur, "I couldn't sleep." His eyes travel upwards to meet mine.

"Are you alright?" He asks, his voice barely a tone above whispering, like the dying note of a piano.

I try to force words out of my pitiful throat, but I don't even manage a sentence before I choke on my fear, and begin to cry.

Small little gasps ravage my body while tears form in the corners of my eyes.

Wordlessly, he pulls me into a hug, pressing my face to his neck. So pitiful of me, to cry after a nightmare I've been having for a decade now. After all that drama is past us anyways.

"Oh, love," He sounds concerned, pained. "Oh, Cora."

"It'll be okay. Just a dream." He pushes me to arm's length to better look at me.

"You know I'm never going to let that happen again. You know that."

In between sobs, I nod helplessly.

He smiles just a bit. "I just wish I could help you stop dreaming it."

Taking a few heaving breaths, I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes, forcing a smile.

"Come on." He whispers, picking me up and hugging me to his chest.

"You'll just spend the night here."

"I don't have to," I protest. "I'm okay now, really." He shakes his head, smiling once more.

"Nonsense." He tells me, laying me down on the clovers and taking a seat next to me.

"Never again." He whispers, smoothing my hair back.

Leaning forward, he places a quiet kiss on my forehead. I feel my stomach soar, my mouth go dry. From his lips emanates a mute sanctity, a golden, flowing warmth that washes through my body, wrapping me in an everlasting and secure embrace. Like a constant blanket of safety to wrap tighter around myself on the dark nights when fear decides to rear it's ugly head.

Never again.

I wake alone.

XXX

I find him standing on the edge of a cliff face, surveying the ocean before him while sunlight washes his angelic face. In the morning sun, he seems almost to glow with an inner radiance.

It looks so strange, this elven creature standing boldly on a cliff like a hero about to embark on an epic adventure. Around him, provided you do not look behind you to see a damp road, you would be hard pressed to remember that you were in Washington, not somewhere else entirely – an alternate universe, a Tolkien world.

I approach him cautiously, though he seems to take no notice of my presence until I step in front of him.

Melancholy chocolate eyes meet mine, a disconsolate expression buried deep within his sharp features.

I reach up a hand to caress his cheek, slowly, as if asking permission to touch him.

Seeing him not shy away, I trace my fingertips down the sharp line of his cheekbone, drawing my hand down a line of bark on his cheek.

"You don't belong here," I whisper quietly, as much to myself as to him. The mournful orbs of his eyes come up to make contact with my own, previously watching my hand on his face.

"You belong in a fairy tale. Someplace with things like you. With, with fae and elves, and magic and trolls…but not here." I murmur, and I see his eyes go tight from pain, shining around the edges.

"This isn't your world." He watches me quietly, a silence growing and blossoming between us.

"No, love." He replies, pulling farther away from me. "No, it's not."

I see a tear catch a fading ray of sun like a crystal poised delicately on his cheek.

Without another word, he disappears into his forest.

A/N: That seemed like a good place to stop, I hope? Yeah, yeah, I know, nothing actually HAPPENED…but…but…there was foreshadowing! See? –points to the foreshadowing- See the foreshadowing? There's foreshadowing!! It wasn't completely pointless!

Stuff happens tomorrow! Promise! Probably!

Can I just…? Who here has heard of Under Byen? Go Dutch bands! I have no clue what they're saying, but they rock! So does Amanita Design! Er.

On that note: I also want to know…OTHER than Twilight, what's your favorite book (other than manga. No offense intended, but I need…you know…words.)? Cause I need stuff to read. Amazon has failed me. Don't nobody insinuate that that's a creepy question, cause it ain't. I. NEED. BOOKS.


	9. Genetics For Dummies

Well, here's a little story about a woman that I knew.

It's no allegory, I guarantee it's all quite true,

So I expect you to believe me, though you won't believe your ears –

Pay attention, listen up though you my tremble,

With fear

You see this woman that I spoke of,

Had a quarrel with her lover.

It seems she had discovered he's been

Sleeping with another

And it was on this very spot in June of 1987,

They fought, and then… he shot her, and… she died… and went… to heaven. (Er.)

Or at least that's what the priest said,

As he read the funeral rights…

But something strange was going on amongst the tomb stones that night.

Just when everybody thought her immortal soul was saved,

We were all quite surprised to learn,

She had…risen from the grave. (Uh.)

She said "Aloha, back I got some business to do!

I'll be back in my casket before the night is through!

But first I'll pay a visit to a certain prison cell.

And see my cheating husband,

And send him straight to hell!"

We were speechless as she left us,

To find the fiend she'd married.

Till someone said

'She's looking good, for a girl who's just been buried.

But you know we oughta stop her. Should we call up the police?'

I said 'She's the living dead, they can do as they please.'

Besides, she was heading right to the station house herself.

Where her husband was awaiting trial, in a holding cell.

The sergeant was surprised to see a corpse walk through the door.

But he said, "Sorry m'am, visiting hours are two to four."

She laughed and said "I'm dead, and I don't have all day!

So if you'd kindly stand aside and show me the way?"

And the sergeant said

"Well okay, then. He's in cell number six." _Besides_, he thought,

_I really don't get paid enough for this._

He was sleeping on his cot when she came into the cell.

And ever since the murder, he had not slept very well.

When he opened up his eyes at first he thought it was a dream,

But she began to speak before he had a chance to SCREAM!

"Aloha, back I got some business to do!

I'll be back in my casket before the night is through!

But first I'll make you pay for your cheating and your lies.

So honey, prepare

To die."

Some say it was a heart attack, some say it was a stroke.

And some will say the whole thing was invented just as a joke,

But I tell you it's a fact!

It all happened right here.

When he saw his undead wife, he simply died of fear.

"Aloha, back I got some business to do!

I'll be back in my casket before the night is through!

But first I'll pay a visit to a certain prison cell.

And see my cheating husband,

And send him straight to hell."

- Grave Situation, Pt. 1, by The Burning Hell (freaking. Hilarious.)

"And everyone remember, your essays are due by the end of the week. I want all of the drafts stapled under the final, and the rubric on top. Don't forget I deduct ten points out of a hundred for every day it's late!" I desperately try to get the message across to the flow of students as they make for the sweet, elusive exit.

I grunt dismissively, heading for the door myself.

XXX

"_Max_?!" I cry, ecstatic.

The skinny geneticist is standing, fully-suited, with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

At the sound of my voice his head snaps in my direction, a smile gracing his face.

Max and I are…well, he's Max! I mean, come on!

"Hey mermaid!" He cries, grinning. Mermaid's his pet name for me, a mockery of the mythical creatures who make up my livelihood.

I rush over to him, dropping my bag in what is probably mud that will stain permanently.

I throw my arms around his neck in a tight embrace, squeezing and rocking back and forth a little.

He pushes me away a little with his arms to look me in the face, nostalgic.

Unable to help myself, I seal my lips to his in a soft kiss. Pulling my lips away, I come in again, peppering him with wet kisses on the mouth in between grinning like an idiot.

He feels so…so warm. So normal. So human.

He smells a little like shaving cream and apple pie.

"I…missed…you…too…mermaid…" He chuckles in between kisses, though when our lips do meet he kisses me back with the eagerness with which I attack him, tangling my hands in his tousled brown hair.

God, I've missed him!

"You grew a beard." I say, tracing a finger around the stubble, barely half a centimeter long, that surrounds his mouth.

Finally, unable to take it any longer, he turns one of our short little kisses into a deepened one, bracing the back of my head with a hand, pressing our mouths together for a long, long time. My arms tighten around his neck, my eyes closed, lost in the perfection of the moment.

"Hang on," I mutter, pulling away.

As I feared (and suspected) we're being watched by a careful ring of students who have all stayed the minimum of fifteen feet away from a teacher when you realize she has a life outside school.

"We're surrounded!" He whispers in mock-terror.

I turn my eyes back to him. "Max?"

"Mm?" He smiles, simple green eyes meeting my own. God, this feels so right.

"So why are you back in town?"

"Job offer at Washington State. The pay isn't much better, but I figured," He places a quiet kiss on my nose. "I figured this was worth it." I can't help but smile.

"So I don't suppose you'd offer to teach a guest lesson for my class?"

He laughs. "I'm a geneticist, not a vampire biologist. Besides, remember what happened last time? I'd like to retain some of my integrity." I chuckle, watching him for a minute before placing another quick kiss on his warm lips.

"I think you gave up all your integrity when you decided to wear that tie in public again." I tell him, fingering the silk accessory. Grey with a black pi sign.

"Hey man. Don't knock the pi-tie." He warns. There's so much warmth there, between us, such a comfortable familiarity.

"I'm not knockin' the pi-tie.." I whisper, using the tie as a reign and pulling him to me.

Fuck the high-schoolers. If I want to make out in a parking lot, I will.

XXX

"So you've been here since I left?"

"Well, ex_cuse_ me for not getting a bajillion job offers from ivy league colleges." I retort, casting him a sidelong glance from behind the wheel of my car.

You honestly want to know what I'm thinking right now?

I really want to jump his bones. It's a pretty basic instinct.

Well, that and I want to catch up. I haven't seen him for nearly five years!

"Well, hooey, dear. I missed you, you know." He offers a feeble smile, placing a bony hand on my knee.

"You got a funny way of showing it." I mutter, pulling off into my exit. After he moved he broke all contact: emails, phone calls, letters, all went response less, until I gave up and stopped trying. I was pretty upset, really. I moped around for weeks.

"I was trying to give you space! I assumed after careful deliberation that though you might consciously wish to pursue our relationship, your subconscious wanted only a fresh start." He grumbles.

I can't stay mad at the nerdiest man alive.

"Nice job not telling me that, Max." I laugh, lacing my fingers with his, keeping only one hand on the wheel.

Way to not pay attention to the road, Cora.

"So what've you been up to?" I ask.

"I dunno. We're doing some cool stuff with nucleotides and-"

"Ah!" I make a short little sound, holding up one finger. "If it's smaller than a cell, I don't care."

"I'm a geneticist, Cor. You could fit my life's work in a cell."

XXX

"Glen?" I call carefully, shutting the door of my car as Max climbs out of his side.

"Good afternoon, Cora! I'll be right out!" I cough, my eyes spreading in fear. If he comes out looking like…

"I'd like you to meet someone! Max Cole! Come and meet him." But as a human, please. Geneticist or not I don't really want to see him react to tree man.

"Oh." Comes the voice, considerably less bright. "I shall be out in a moment."

There's silence for a moment, followed by a curious sound – like trembling. Probably my aquarium air pump is leaning against something. It's like a jackhammer sometimes.

Glen emerges calmly, human. It seems almost like he's trying to look good sometimes.

Stupid. Fucking. Tree folk.

Wearing only some grey sleep pants, he squeezes excess moisture out of his hair, shining droplets landing on his chest. Every sharp line of his body is accentuated by the dappled light of the forest.

What the hell?! Who comes out to meet someone soaking wet and shirtless?!

He pauses, staring at the two of us, arms by his side. A cold, hard look settles itself on his face, disapproving or angry.

He smiles a little, bitter thing. "Hello, Max. I'm Glen. Cora's…" He pauses. "Roommate. It's nice to meet you."

"Hey, you too! Cora's told me a lot about you!" Max grins, approaching the hostile nymph amicably, offering a hand to shake. Glen looks at the limb disdainfully, like an alien life form, unsure of what to do.

Grudgingly, he brings up his own hand in a mimic of the gesture, and Max takes it, shaking. Glen does not himself contribute anything to the gesture, his arm hanging limply while it's pumped up and down.

When Max lets go, Glen lets his arm fall down to his side again.

"She has?" He asks, looking to me and back to him.

"Yeah. You guys are pretty good friends, huh? Thanks for taking care of her while I was gone!" He laughs, elbowing Glen in the ribs.

"Yes. You're welcome in that respect." He sounds…dead. Like something snapped. What happened to Happy Glen? Maybe something happened while I was gone.

The last thing I need on my hands in a bipolar wood nymph.

"So how do you two know each other?" Max and I exchange glances.

"We dated a few years back." I say.

"Till I had to move for work." He adds, shrugging apologetically.

Though I know I'm imagining it, the look on Glen's face bars on…disgust.

_You left her…for a job?_

The thought rings, loud and clear, through the forest, like someone tapped a glass with a pencil. But I seem to be the only one to hear it, because Max goes on trying to make conversation with the catatonic creature.

"Alright, well, Cora and I were going to take a walk in the woods. You know, catch up. You wanna come with, Glen?" He smiles, though the gesture is not returned.

"No. I have…work to do." He shoots us both a quiet, meaningless smile before walking around behind the house, his jaw ticking impatiently, hands flexing.

"Well…he was…nice." Max offers. "Must not make a lot of noise when you want to work. That must be good. He seems real…nice." He coughs.

No, it's okay, you can say it.

He's PMS-ing.

Seriously, I've gotta talk to that man about manners!

Max sighs, coming over to put his hands on my hips.

"So how've you been, mermaid?" He smiles. I search his eyes for a moment, reveling in the scene.

It's hard to have a human boyfriend when you're surrounded by so much…well, not human el-perfecto-chiseled-muscle guys talking about true love. And Glen.

But my god, it feels so…_right_. So normal.

Lacing my arms around his neck, I stand on my tiptoes to hug him, resting my chin on his shoulder.

Max is pretty tall, but incredibly skinny. Not 'hot skinny' either, but 'nerdy spent fourteen hours on the computer and forgot to eat food' skinny. I've got a giant soft spot for awkward geeks.

But my sparkling reverie is shattered when I see Glen, still human – which only happens unwillingly when he feels a great surge of emotion. He's leaning, arms crossed, against the side of the house, watching us.

His stance is threatening, intimidating – but his face. Oh, his face. It's like something's been torn out of him. His eyes are rimmed with tears, pain evident, his jaw set as if it's a dam, preventing anything from spilling out. Like there's a black hole in his chest, sucking the very life out of him.

Something happened, didn't it? I have to talk to him when I get back.

XXX

"So what're the Forks High kids like?"

"They're…I don't know. They're teenagers."

"Ah. Well, in that case."

"Shut up!" I fake slap him in the arm, but he just laughs, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"You still doing to mythology thing?"

"Yeah."

"You got to the biology bit yet? That bit is the best bit." He grins.

"Actually, that bit comes later this week." I explain.

I grab his arm, preventing him from inevitably tripping over the log that he evidently didn't see at all. Can't tell you how many time's Glen's saved my ass by doing the same thing. Guess he's rubbing off on me!

"I was totally going to get that."

"Of course you were, sweetie." I croon, kissing him on the cheek.

He glances at his watch (which is huge, by the way, with a calculator).

"Oh, man! I have to be at a meeting in an hour!"

"You do?"

"Yeah, college stuff." He tells me, stopping and turning around.

Something about the forest seems different now – it's grayer. And not just because of the clouds that have descended menacingly on the treetops. Just…less full of life. Not bothering to impress anyone anymore.

"Okay. See you later?" I ask. I don't really feel like leaving the forest just yet.

"Uh huh. You have my number." He grins before staring ahead of himself blankly.

"Max?"

"Yeah?"

"You have no idea where you're going."

"Nope."

"Despite the fact that we've followed the path this whole time and haven't changed direction once."

"I'm a lab guy."

"Just go…" I place my hands on his shoulder from behind, orienting him, turning him slightly to the right.

"In that direction."

"O-kay." He says, straightening his tie before setting off with robotic, idiotic motions. I can't help but laugh.

"You know you love it!" He calls, breaking into a jog.

Chuckling, I shake my head, turning back to the path.

It's so quiet here, so comfortable. Like being with that one person in your life – be it lover, friend or relative, that you never have to explain anything to. The forest just accepts me. It listens to my thoughts.

Okay, that sounded way creepier than I meant it to sound. Really. The forest doesn't stalk me, guys. Relax.

Taking my own sweet time, I stuff my hands in my jean pockets, teetering along aimlessly. Occasionally I'd use my boot to tip over an especially juicy looking log. Inquisitive minds are never turned off.

But they are rewarded! Would you look at this? I found a newt! Sweetness! I pick up the black, coiling creature, its legs barely a compensation for its serpentine body.

Admiring everything about the wet little amphibian, the sinuous olive of its flanks, large eyes, permeable skin.

But then I hear a crash.

Shocked out of my admiration, I drop the newt – it's the same reaction that makes your hand twitch wildly when you see an insect on it.

Fight or flight.

I look up and come face to face with my worst nightmare.

A bear, with silvery, shaggy fur. The creature has got to be bigger even than the werewolves, its great haunches hackles menacingly, tense and ready to fight. It's head is disproportionate to the rest of its body – larger, with a longer muzzle, but most unequivocally a bear nonetheless. But most terrifying of all are its eyes – great black pits, shining onyx that seem to let nothing in, reflecting all surfaces.

It's got to be less than two yards away from me, and its head snaps up to meet my own, eyes narrowing curiously. It does not growl at me, nor does it threaten to attack. But it stares at me. Oh, god, it could have been hours that it stared at me. That the beast stared at me.

Finally assessing my danger risk as low, it turns back to its task, plotting off with great thuds, disappearing into the forest.

It's back. The beast came back.

A/N: Alright, I hope that that satisfied the need for the plot to move forward. Good news! My plot-walk worked. I came home and wrote out the entire thing on the back of a piece of paper, and I now know what I'm doing! Which is a pretty big change of pace for me!

Oh, and, little sidebar: Great. The last thing I need is more unrequited love on my hands. Friggin' OCs.

I really gotta get on that Mort and Joanna thing.


	10. Needs And More Ridiculous Cliches

How could I not have?  
Of course I ate them, fifteen or sixteen, telling myself it was an accident.Their bitter taste lasted days, and after that I had to wait for the awe to come back,  
Which it did in a month.  
Before I could try again.

And that's what I was thinking about when I woke up at five this morning.  
I came down the stairs, and you were asleep on the couch,  
Warmly bundled in your new boyfriend's arms.  
Did you hear me come down? I don't know,  
But you opened your eyes just then, and, gave me that funny eyebrow thing.  
I smiled back and,  
You were asleep.

-Elliot Harmon, _Poem_

-themagicaldividingline-

"Glen, I'm telling you that I know what I saw! It's back. I swear to you, that _thing_ is back. And it's…different."

He pauses, thumbs in his pockets.

We're standing just outside the house in a light drizzle, the day only just beginning to grow dark. I've barely held myself together long enough to make it back.

Sometimes I wonder if he consciously puffs his chest out or if he always stands with such great posture.

Still gazing at me with granite eyes, he responds. "Are you sure? Did _Max_ see it?" He spits the word.

What is this animosity he bears towards my little geek? I mean in a human, it'd obviously be jealousy. But this is Glen we're talking about. I mean he's a super hot wood nymph, for crying out loud! If he were interested he would have bloody DONE something already!

"No. He left before." I mutter. Before he opens his mouth to speak, I add, "And a good thing, too. I don't know how he'd react."

"That's funny." He hisses bitterly.

"What's funny?" I ask, earnestly confused.

"You're all too glad to spend all your time with him. But when you _need _something…" He doesn't have to finish the sentence before I'm shaking with anger, hands balled into fists at my side.

"When. I. _Need something_?" He winces at the harshness of my voice.

"Need something? What about the last three years? Everyday, me coming out to forest and us talking for hours on end, was that me _needing something_? When I tried to save your life ten years ago, was that me _needing something_? When I went with you to calm the waters between the werewolves and vampires at eighteen, was that me _needing something_, Glenwood? When I first met you and started doodling drawings of you in your tree form all over my notebook when I should have been studying trigonometry, was that me _needing something_ from you?" I feel seething anger, churning and spiking, in my gut. Like a hideous warmth, threatening to drown me if I don't let it out. I need to hit something or break something or – or do _something_. Some rash action. I need to do it now.

Breathing heavily, I advance on Glen. I don't know what I plan on doing exactly – but something, I have to do something.

"Cora!" He tells me rashly, placing a hand on either of my shoulders.

How _dare_ he.

"Cora. I'm sorry, Cora. I didn't mean it. Cora." He pleads. And though I don't want to, I feel my anger begin to recede. "My thinking was just…clouded."

"By what?" He stares me deep in the eyes, disbelieving.

"Nothing." He whispers huskily.

The anger doesn't leave me, but I feel it travel upwards, transforming into something entirely different. A feeling I am completely unused to. A careful tingling, first infecting my heart and spreading through my body, like anti-matter, sucking a little something out of me, a tiny voice traveling on my hemoglobin, repeating over and over:

_You need something._

_You need him._

"Sorry." I mutter, staring at him, rapt. "I just…I'm kind of on edge."

He stays tense for a minute, hands on my arms. Almost as if he's considering something...

Before he lets me go, taking a step back. "I realized." He chuckles weakly.

"You realize what this means, Cora."

"It means a lot of things. Which one are you thinking of in particular?"

"There's bound to be more than one. A thing like that never travels alone."

I snort, massaging my shivering arms. Funny thing is, it isn't that cold. "I know. We should be so lucky." I laugh bitterly.

He sighs, running a hand through his – very human – hair.

"God, Cora," He says. "We got rid of them. They all died six years ago." He shakes his head.

"That's what I'm saying, Glen. This thing – it wasn't – it was different. It was bigger and, and…shinier. Even less natural than before. And bigger. Just…just more..."

"Unnatural." He finishes for me gravely. That feeling is back in my gut.

He takes a few paces towards me, placing one hand on my arm.

"You tell no one of this."

"Okay."

"No exceptions, Cora. We can't take any chances. Not the werewolves, not the vampires, no close personal friends or inanimate objects. Nothing." Right, because the evil wolf-bears are being controlled by a villainous mastermind. I forgot.

"I know."

"Not even your…_Max_."

I can still feel his heated gaze when I go to sleep that night.

XXX

"You guys all knew that this wasn't going to be a normal class, right? That we're doing a hell of a lot more than just looking into the history of the creatures?"

Edward begins to sketch something on the back of the sheet I just passed out. Emmett's folding it into little origami animals.

Oh look, a little crane. He made a little crane.

And Alice…no, hang on a second, I can't quite…

Yeah. Yeah. She's doing long division.

"Guys? Can I get something? A nod, smile, thumb's up, some recognition of what I'm saying?" There are a few bored grunts, people shifting in their seats. This is getting old, guys.

I snort. "Fine. You guys have all taken biology, right? Simple basics."

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh."

"In seventh grade."

"Basically."

These are what I get, along with the wise-ass remarks with humor so bland and tasteless that it's not even worth recounting.

"Our next unit has to do with possible biology of mythological creatures – especially the ones that seem to plague our modern society in novels." A few yellow eyed glances.

"Guys?"

"So, vampires and mermaids and werewolves and stuff?" Alice asks. I swear, there have been days when the two of us just had a conversation and everyone else listened in.

"Just about, yes."

"What do you mean possible biology?" Rosalie asks, penetrating my skull with baleful ochre eyes.

"Well, obviously there is more than one solution to a problem. Just look at the diversity you have today. So if we come up with a creature with a certain set of requirements – say, blood sucking and immortality – I might be able to come up with plausible ways for it to happen, but there are others. In fact, that'll be part of your unit project." I hear groans. I always hated it when teachers did that – alluded to difficult and antagonizing projects in the future without telling you what or when they will be.

But I get why they did it now.

It's so FUN!! Maniacal laughter.

"On that note…Does anyone have any objections to starting with vampires?"

I don't see who, but I do register a few hands raised above the sea of heads. A few very pale hands.

"Feel free to explain." Hands go back down, shot like enemy soldiers.

"Fair enough." I hoist myself up on my desk.

"Someone shout out a vampire myth."

"Blood!" Well gee, that was original. Appreciate it, love.

"Fair enough. How about this one: hemoglobin has regenerative properties for the post-mortem muscle, constantly renewing it and sparking the cell division process. Especially if said dead beasty type person has no method of producing blood independently."

I have a minor in biology and I'm wincing when I say that.

"Turning into bats." I search for the smooth velvet voice who spoke the words, no doubt in my mind that it was a vampire but – Emmett didn't say anything.

Edward? Well who knew Marble Boy had a sense of humor.

"That…no. That's just dumb."

"That's dumb? And I suppose that by your definition that would make werewolves dumb as well?"

"No. It's just that the bat thing…well, that's overkill." I take on my signature Stoned Skater Dood voice. "Don't perpetuate stereotypes, man."

I'm met by an equilibrium of 'wtf' stares and chuckles.

XXX

"Cora, olives are not food." I freeze guiltily, fork poised over the jar, sitting in front of the television.

With an ashamed puppy gaze, I lean my head back far enough to stare Max in the face. Upside down Max.

"But I like olives!"

"You must lead a terrible example for your kids." Upside-down Max tells me.

"But…I like olives!"

"No. You need real food."

"But I like-"

"No." Upside-down Max tells me, snatching the jar and lid off the table, much to my dismay.

I can't help but giggle at Upside-Down Max Holding a Jar of Olives.

"Fine. I suppose you'll be cooking me a gourmet meal, then?"

"But of course. Where are your take-out menus?"

XXX

My plastic fork hovering above the rapidly cooling food, I tentatively eye a mysterious Blobby Red Thing on my plate, occasionally glancing at Max to see how he's faring with the unidentifiable food.

I can't help but wonder – should I tell him? I know what Glen said. I do remember. But let's use common sense here.

I met Max months after all of that horribleness had ended, at a genetics conference – a mutual friend introduced us. We dated for about six months before he had to go – and his leave is most definitely something I don't hold against him. I would have done the same thing. That's the thing about scientists – no matter the situation, the curiosity, the will to discover – it predominates everything. Relationships, friendships, sometimes even family, if you have the chance to change the world…you take it. They're a crazy breed. You have to be, to go on months long expedition in the freezing Arctic (not that he did, but I'm speaking generally).

Also, he's a geneticist. He could help – I found a patch of fur on a branch on the forest (I know, right? Why did I not mention this earlier?). I thought nothing of it at the time – just strange to think of an animal with white fur when it isn't winter up here. He probably has a…a DNA…lab…or something. Right? With a lab coat and-

Okay, well, maybe he just has a lab. I'm sure he has a lab.

And he's obviously harmless. I know, I know, saying that jinxes it, but logically: he's just an awkward, tall, skinny nerd with surprisingly nice hair. He wears loafers, guys. Shut up, you guys. They're shmexy.

Um.

Evidently I have yet to grow out of my twelve year old mentality.

"Max?" I ask softly, still unsure. If I tell him, there's no taking it back –

But what if he makes the difference between catching them and losing them?

"Yeah, mermaid?"

I take a deep breath, willing the words into my mouth, letting them take shape there from the constant flow of indecipherable syllables.

"I need…a favor."

He frowns, eyebrows furrowing a little, in confusion. "What kind of favor?"

"Just…nothing big…but…"

"Like 'I just need your spare kidney' big or 'can you get me coffee' big?"

"Well, it's smaller than a cell." He grins.

"Hypocrite."

"Shut up!" I laugh.

"So what do you need?" I pause, swallowing the feeling in my throat which settles in the pit of my stomach.

"I need you to…just, tell me what you can about this." I reach over to one of the kitchen drawers, pulling out a baggie full of white hair.

"You suspect your grandmother of being an alien?"

"Shut up! It's a…" I grimace. "It has to do with the…bear thing."

The smirk is wiped clean off his face and recycled in the green bin. His expression grows deathly serious. Yes, I told him before – when he asked what the scar was on my side. I didn't tell him everything, conveniently smudging the supernatural angle and referring to it as a 'mild bear problem', though I've always had the sneaking suspicion he knows about vampires.

"Sorry. I didn't know – I'll get right on it. I think I know some people at the university that can help – just. Sorry. I um –"

"Relax, Captain Awkward." I smile, giving him a fake punch in the arm and handing him the Baggie Full 'O Hair.

He's such a good guy.

A/N: And so the love triangle begins…I know what side I'm on ;). And you? Woo! Alright, granted no one cares save for me, but…Does anyone think that the saying 'Your opinion is the only one that matters' is kind of narcissistic?

Anyway, I was thinking yesterday, and I don't think that the term 'general' applies to the genre of this story. And unfortunately for me, there's no 'depends on my mood' option. Ah well. I suck at summaries too, that doesn't make it your problem.

I may or may not do a little dance every time I check my email. Thank you to all who have reviewed! You guyth make me feel tho thpecial. But...but...uh...Anyone's thoughts on the latest chapter? Criticisms, unending praise, flamethrowers, little animals made out of parentheses, etc.

Description of Bearsuit (band): They are self-described as 'space-age riot-dweeb noise-pop,' and say that the subjects examined on their new album include "terrible blood-thirsty gangs of tiny children, getting jiggy with dinosaurs, fist-fighting with your younger self, and signing up for intergalactic warfare." All of this they note as quote, "the usual shit."

Sorry. Uh. I'm in new music withdrawal. I shall now retreat to Indiefeed.


	11. Sorry I Asked

A/N: Instead of moving the plot forward (pff, whatever man) I decided to focus a little more in on CITC (Cora In The Classroom) for this chapter. WishMyBloodSang, thanks for the gentle reminder! It's easy to get sidetracked. Sorry, everybody. xD

"We've turned vampires into Count Chocula and teenage girls are dating them." – Steve Niles

--

I'm impatiently awaiting more students to come trickling through the door with excuses about how it's a Tuesday but they thought it was an early release (yeah right) and they didn't mean to be late and they would have gotten late passes but their teachers wouldn't give them late passes and so can I please not count them as late because they already have a B in this class.

No more students are trickling through the door.

Why are there no students trickling through the door.

The Cullens have all seated themselves in the front row, looking as neat and impossibly flawless as ever, and glancing at the clock.

"Ms. Regence?"

"Huh?" Alice coughs, running a hand through her hair.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Well, did you guys kill all of my other students?"

There's a collective round of indignant 'no's.

"Then why are there no humans in my classroom?"

A hand is raised. "I'm here!" Bella tells me.

"Yes, well, at this point you've earned the rank of 'honorary vampire' anyways, so you don't count." She frowns at me.

"'Honorary vampire'?"

"I don't know. You get invited to all the…meetings."

Emmett chokes back a giggle. "Meetings?"

"Hush you. I'm a teacher and teachers are always right no matter what." I grin to signify that it's a joke and witness them exchanging glances.

"It was a joke." Edward whispers to the rest of them.

"Oh!"

"Oh yeah!"

"I get it!"

"That's kind of funny." I'm sorry, did you all lose your senses of humor when you were turned?

"So where is everyone?"

They glance at each other again, and I can literally see the conversation:

'She doesn't know?'

'I guess not. She's new, right?'

'Who wants to tell her?'

'I don't wanna do it.'

'Shouldn't she just figure it out?'

'Last one to put their finger on their nose has to tell her!'

'No fair, you're all vampires. Unfair advantage.'

'Fine. Excluding Bella.'

'That's not fair either!'

'Well excuse me for being speciesist.'

"Guys!" I say, my voice leaning towards a hard edge. All five heads snap up to stare at me disconcertingly.

"It's ditch day."

I pause. "What the f-…hell is ditch day?" I catch myself on the lip of the swear, barely.

Alice shrugs. "It's April Fool's day, so everyone agreed to not come to school and go to an…arcade, or something?"

"Then why are you people still here?" Silence.

Bella half-raises her hand, not waiting for permission to speak before she does.

"Well, I was forced to come."

"By your parents?"

"No." She glares at Edward, who smiles at her mischievously. My guess is that he gave her the option of either ditching without him or coming to school with him.

Man, they would make such popular movie characters. Average girl and Perfect Boy. Every teenage girl's dream.

"Well, we weren't specifically told about it."

"No one talks to us." Emmett grins a frightening little grin.

"I see. And yet you still came to school because…?"

"We didn't come to school. Just this class." Edward tells me, quirking an elegant eyebrow.

"Oh. Well, in that case." I crack open a window, allowing in the vicious little fur bundle that is Chet the vampire cat.

"May as well have the whole freakin' gang here." I mutter, safe in the knowledge that they're all going to hear me, receiving a few sniggers. Sometimes I feel like my job is just a bunch of stand-up, hoping to elicit a reaction from my 'audience'.

Chet, entirely pleased with himself and probably thinking that it was his doing that I magically opened the window, seats himself firmly on my shoulder.

"That…" Rosalie begins.

"Vampire cat. His name is Chet." Edward tells her, eyes fixed on the animal.

Friggin'…friggin'…friggin'…mind readers.

He smirks, evidently having read that thought as well.

"So you guys are only coming to my class today?"

"It's one more class than everyone else is going to." Mutters Bella.

That's great. That's just fantastic, guys. I'm the only one worthy of vampire condescension on this special, lovely day.

"I'm not sure whether or not to be flattered."

"Neither. We want to help you." Edward tells me, leaning back in his chair and lacing fingers over his stomach.

"Help me?"

"Help her?" Emmett looks rather confused, as does everyone except Edward and Alice.

Funny coincidence: I used to know someone named Mary Alice Edwards.

Sorry, random.

"She's recently come across a problem with the forest. Haven't you, Ms. Regence?" I wince.

"You see?" He tells the others.

"Ms. Regence? What is it?" I shake my head.

"Nothing. Just – Edward can explain it to you later or something. Or maybe I'll get Glen to talk to you. But not now, guys." I allow my eyes to float over the people in my room, all somber-faced and quiet.

"Ms. Regence, are you sure that we can't help now? It's not as if there's anything –"

"Oh, go eat a diseased lawn gnome." I grumble, sitting cross-legged on my desk.

Chet gives a mew of protest, digging into my shirt to try and maintain his balance before yielding and leaping into my lap.

Yes, to answer your question, it is like being sat on by a boulder. A very mossy bolder.

"So what do you want to do with this time?" I ask, sarcasm a dark ribbon threaded through my already bitter voice.

"Well, I wouldn't be opposed to more vampire myths."

"Alice!"

"Oh, lighten up, Rose." She replies.

I grin.

-**this**_line_means**I'm**_skipping_to**the**_better_bit-

"In a lot of cultures, vampirism was considered a disease. This disease was probably tuberculosis or a pneumonic form of the bubonic plague, with side affects like hypersensitivity, which is likely where the light and garlic myths arise. Some neural diseases also affected the sleep patterns of the brain, causing people to suffer symptoms like nocturnal behavior…" I smirk. "And hypersexuality."

There are some uncomfortable coughs, shifting in seats, and I have to tighten my arms around Chet to keep from busting out laughing.

No no, seriously it's true! Promise! The fact that male vampires seem to see lingerie as salad dressing on their women in novels has an actual bearing! Swear!

A/N: Alright, alright, my noodling is over and done with (for now). The chapter after next, as far as I've planned it, probably will have little to no Cullen-ness (sorry). But trust me. If I did, it'd just be awkward. Besides! I've been looking forward to writing that chapter! Don't deny me my avoidance of all things real world!!

Random thought: I've noticed that of the amazing super fantastic awesome and other hyperboles people who have reviewed, a couple of you left some bunnies. Now, I had a thought when I saw these lovely little things. And that thought was comprised of two words:

BUNNY. ARMY.

If you feel like it, leave some sort of animal (be it bunny or otherwise) in your review. Imagine some innocent bystander clicking on the review thing for whatever reason and being assaulted with ten different kinds of bunnies.

You see it, don't you? HELP ME BUILD A BUNNY ARMY!!

I shall now zone out into fish world. Go Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine!

Also, I found a picture of female Glen. It's kind of eerie. Just take away all the foliage. Look on my profile-type-thing. 0.o


	12. Well Wouldya Lookit That

A/N: Wow. So, not counting my vote, it's…um…like twelve or thirteen to…uh…ZERO. Guess who won the triangle war. Poor Max. Ah well. Maybe it'll help!

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

**Sir Francis Bacon**

--

They're trickling in, slowly, one or two at a time. The werewolves and the vampires. Glen says he called them here, allowed them to bring their humans.

A huge field, the grass clinging to dew like the one material object it will ever possess, the sky covering the trees and distant mountains like a blanket.

It reminds me of those nights when I was scared that something would creep up my window and slither in the cracks in the floor. Somehow I'd convinced myself that if I pulled the comforter over my head and kept my eyes open, there was nothing that could get me. That bizarre safe feeling – having something hovering over you, smothering you. That's what it feels like.

I don't know why I was asked to come – I'd have just as soon stayed home with a good book and some self-denial about the problems in my life than come and watch a bunch of creatures fight each other.

Glen has seated himself in a branch on a particularly old tree – one that seems to be missing a rather large branch directly underneath the one he's on.

Evidently few of even these vampires have seen him like this, as his ever-dry golden bark skin seems to gleam in this grey world. Sepia eyes, however, disregard the stone cold beauties, resting only on me. His face has no blatant expression, but something about the way he sits – one hand on a bent knee, back leaning against the branch, the other leg dangling nonchalantly nearly twenty feet off the ground. Something in his face. Like a hidden smile, an inside joke shared with me.

"Ms. Regence?" I wince. Out with the girl, in with the teacher.

"Hello, Rosalie." The angelic blonde creature heads for me – floats, really, or glides – hair rippling in the gentle breeze created by her stride.

"What are you doing here?" I frown. I feel so…I don't know. Inferior. Next to her. Which is ridiculous, because the truth is that I'm rather full of myself.

Right, Cora. That's why you don't own any mirrors. Pfft.

"Bella didn't tell you?" She shakes her head.

"I…" I pause. The truth is, I have no clue how I could possibly help this situation. I also had assumed that vampires already knew how to fight.

Well, considering what the bear thing did to that last vampire…maybe this was a good idea. But still. Glen begged me to come.

He didn't really beg, per se…but he asked. He asked and he gave me this quiet, pleading look. Like he feared for my safety if I didn't come.

Strange how the sighting of a single animal can cause such commotion, isn't it?

"I just felt the need to be here." I mutter, chancing a glance in Glenwood's direction. His gaze hasn't wavered.

Rosalie says nothing, but she nods, giving me a little smile, before heading back towards Emmett.

There's another one here – another vampire, that is. One I don't recognize. I know Carlisle and Esme (Parent-teacher conferences, which are really fun when you know your students are older than you are, believe me), but this one…the one that Alice is talking to. Blonde, tall-ish. I don't know. There's just something different.

This must be Jasper. Curiouser and curiouser.

Bella stands awkwardly near the fringe of the vampire circle, hovering dangerously near the werewolves, gaze darting back and forth between the two groups. It must be terrible to have two such different sides of yourself tugging for attention.

Who am I kidding? It is terrible. I mean it just downright sucks. It's totally unfair for Edward and Jacob to be vying for her full attention when she can just love them both and why does someone always have to make a decision it's totally unfair to the person involved because either way her decision makes her lose something and the two sides just don't get that because they only see their view and –

_Wow, deflect much?_

I pause, taking a strained breath. Trying to ignore the eyes I know rest solely on my face. His eyes.

"Is this everyone?" Glen calls, his voice sounding of normal volume despite his distance.

"Yes." Edward replies, eyeing the werewolves for confirmation. They ignore him, which must mean that it is so.

"Good." Glen replies curtly, rising to stand on the branch.

In a single swift motion, he leaps in the air, toes oriented towards the earth, soaring downwards until the tips of his feet touch the ground. All of this happens in a millisecond.

It seems that no one but me is the slightest bit impressed, though all eyes are on him as he circles past the werewolves to stand in between both groups, regarding them carefully.

"Did I ask for distinct species spheres?" They shift uncomfortably, neither group willing to grow closer to the other. Heated gazes are exchanged.

Glenwood snorts, shaking his head, and begins to stalk around them, arms crossed, paces a fluid motion.

He circles the lot of them once before stopping once again, letting his arms fall to his sides, shaking his head.

"I suppose you all want to know why you're here?"

Edward stares at him blankly, a tick in his jaw as he attempts to read the – I'm assuming – unreadable mind of the creature deemed worthy of the control of his species.

FBFBFBFBFB

_Cora laughed, a cautious sound, as if unused to the atmosphere which greeted it, formerly trapped inside her throat._

_She scooted over, around the base of the great tree, seating herself firmly on the wood nymph's lap. It may have been a grey, drizzling day, but everything around Glenwood seemed to sparkle golden. _

_"So you're like…like the monster master?" She giggled. Indeed, huzzah for alliteration._

_Glen joined her with his own deep throated chuckle, wrapping his arms around the girl. Such a wonder, this one. _

_In response to his embrace, she laced her arms around the base of his neck, snuggling closer to his chest though her head was above his._

_"Yes," He replied, burying the bridge of his nose directly under the sharp corner of her jawbone, smiling uncontrollably. _

_"Master of the monsters." Her laugh this time was at the tickling sensation of Glen's closeness. _

_"Slave to a human." He whispered, eliciting an involuntary shiver from the girl._

FBFBFBFBFB

"No, Edward, it's not because I fear for the safety of…I don't understand. My flame?" He asks the boy, tilting his head to the side in a showing of curious ignorance.

I suppose Edward hadn't realized that his power could also work in the reverse for a creature made almost entirely of magic.

"Ms – Cora." Edward explains, frowning.

Glen cocks his head to the other side. "Cora is not a fire. She is a person, like you were a person." His laughable ignorance is…well…laughable. Oh you stupid, stupid little man.

"Then why do you need us? You gonna make us stand in a circle and dance?" Shouts one of the werewolves, someone I don't recognize, a tall muscular one.

Yeah, because that tells you a lot.

Glen shoots a piercing glare in his direction, and a hush falls over the forest, sending chills down my spine and ripples up my stomach. The forest is attentive to its leader.

"Normally," he begins, folding his arms behind his back like an army general, advancing on the wolves, eyes taking on a color several shades lighter. "I would not ask help of my charges. Far from it, for it is my task to help you."

He turns on one foot primly, a swerve so graceful I barely notice it, keeping his eyes on the group as a whole the entire time.

"But something is coming and it is big and I need fighters." He says quietly, his face hardening.

"Can I count on you?"

XXX

"We know how to fight already! You taught us yourself!" Shouts Jacob, crossing his arms across his bare chest and glaring at Glenwood, who meets his gaze levelly.

A low, menacing chuckle escape's Glen's mouth as he releases his arms to let them once again hang at his sides, approaching the wolf with the irregular paces of a predator.

A grin spreads across his face, tainting his perfect features with joyful malice.

"What makes you think I'd teach you everything I know, wolf?" He whispers, his voice acid on silk.

And I know that everyone in the clearing, myself included, feels the drop in the pit of our stomachs when he washes over a gleaming black.

Gone is the golden nymph whom I've known for so long. In his place is a Glen-shaped creature, of an ebony appearance –his body and face and root-like head growths all carved of an achingly beautiful black wood. True ebony, not just the color.

And his eyes. A yellow, but not the ochre yellow of a well-fed vampire, not the yellow of a ray of sun. But a creamy, pure, white-yellow, like holding a piece of blank paper up to a window.

"You don't know the half of what I'm capable of." He hisses in the boy's face, smooth ebony skin reflecting the dull light of the afternoon sky.

Jacob stiffens, clearly frightened, and who can blame him. There are few occasions on which a wood nymph will take on this form. And believe you me, you don't want to be near on those occasions.

Snapping away from Jacob, he once again addresses the whole group.

"You think you know how to fight? You've grown over-reliant on your abilities. There's a difference. You think hunting my real bears can prepare you for these monstrosities?" He rests his eerie off-white gaze on Emmett, and the gentle giant shivers.

"They're almost as strong as I am. And I don't know why. So prepare yourselves, because you need a plan based only on strategy."

"If these creatures are so strong and we're so weak, then why do you need our help?" Jasper calls quietly.

The creature, my Glen, his gaze darts to the young (looking) blond boy.

"Because, Jasper." The boy shows no recognition of the fact that his name was called.

"Because they travel in packs. Because I can only take on one at a time. Because I need more than humans to distract them. And because I know they won't kill you." His gaze darts to mine.

And I see why everyone winced so when confronted with these two spheres of purest white gold. I feel like I'm being validated, presented in front of a panel of judges with the uncanny ability to reach deep inside and see every pockmark, every blemish, every stain on my crippled and unworthy soul.

"Why won't they kill us?" Asks Carlisle, stealing a glance at his watch.

I'm sorry, do you have better things to do than ensure the welfare of the entire forest and yourselves?

Thankfully Glen's eyes now shift to him, and I can physically feel a pressure lifted from my shoulders.

"Because they have no interest in you. You aren't food or enemy."

"But if we fight them, that's what they'll become." Glen frowns.

"I never said you were fighting them."

"You said you needed fighters."

"To distract them. You don't have near enough strength to actually destroy a single one! I need you to keep them busy until I can get to them."

"So we're like your little bag o' disposable monsters?" Emmett asks brightly, evidently unfazed by Scary Glen.

Glen himself smiles. "Well, disposable is not the first word that comes to mind. Hell, I doubt they're going to suddenly sprout fire beams out of their eyes."

He runs a tongue down his teeth, creating a mobile lump around his lip that travels from one side of his dull, shining mouth to the other.

"Oh come on, guys. If nothing else at least you'll feel good about yourselves!" He offers, washing back to the bark-covered Glen that I know and love. He laces his fingers in front of them in a distantly interested manner, staring at his hand like a fascinated child.

"Okay."

"_Emmett_!"

"What? You guys were all thinking the same thing."

"He's right, you know." Edward adds, eyebrows raised. Well look at you.

"And you?" Glen turns to the werewolves, considerably less intimidating now that he looks like a tree once more. I've never seen him go all ebony like that – well, once, but at the time I thought I was imagining it. It was just a flash by my window in fifth period on a Friday, and my options were either a) mysterious tree nymph not only transforms into a human at his will but into a sleek onyx warrior whenever the chance to fight evil presents itself that happened to dart past a window at my high school or b) black cat. Occam's razor, anyone?

"Of course. We owe you that much." Sam mutters, met by a few grudging nods and/or grunts of agreement.

Glen smiles once more, clapping his hands. "Okay then! Good!" He grins.

XXX

As fun as it is to watch mythical creatures practice beating the shit out of each other, for some strange reason I decided to go home and, you know, eat food. Such strange ways us humans have.

You know the best part about knowing the person who is, essentially, the forest god?

Free berries. Not kidding.

Plopping myself down on the couch with a nice book and a handful of general forest-y-type food, I'm just getting comfortable when-

When my bloody cell phone rings. Oh, come on!

I swear, if it's my mother I WILL hit ignore.

"Hello?" I ask gruffly, not bothering to check the caller ID.

"_Cora_?" Oh, it's Max. Well, that's okay then.

"Hey Max."

"_I got the results from your –_" he coughs. "_Sample_."

"And?"

"_And_…" He pauses, and I hear through muffled static the sound of feet shuffling shadily away on super-hygienic tiles. He doesn't want anyone else hearing what he's about to say.

Well that can't be good.

"Max?"

"_It's – the thing. It's a vampire, mermaid._" There's a hushed silence from both ends of the phone, the only sound that of our crackling breathing.

"Like a…a vampire?"

"_Uh huh. I mean at first I couldn't even remove a sample from it – tried cutting the fur with scissors, a knife, a saw – finally it worked when I used a concentrated laser beam. I owe a bunch of guys favors for that one, let me tell you._"

I try out a careful laugh. "Thanks."

"_No problem, mermaid. Just – whatever this thing is…don't go near it, okay_?"

I nod.

Then I realize he can't hear me over the phone. "Uh huh." I'm a terrible liar.

"Wait."

"Yeah?"

"You…know?"

"About vampires?"

"I mean-"

"_Yes, Cor, I know. Well, I only had a theory at first, but you basically just confirmed it_."

"You won't –"

"_Tell anyone? Please! Not every one of us scientists is an evil genius, you know_." I chuckle softly.

"Bye."

"_Bye._" I hang up the phone.

And it's pretty hard to focus on my book now.

A/N: Alright, next chapter is the one with virtually no Cullens in it. Um. Good luck to me on that, huh? Oh well.

Oh, and WOO! The army hath begun! Awesome, guys. I'm thinking we rob a publishing company for _Breaking Dawn_ with the bunnies.


	13. No Subplot My Ass

A/N: That's it. I give up on trying to get anyone to like Max. Him and I are just going to go to Starbucks together on Fridays.

I relent.

_Hear me now in the storm and the stress I've,  
Followed fifteen paths to grace!  
On each I am the oak, she is  
The pine._

_I spent three nights awake beside her we  
Neither slept, nor spoke, or touched,  
And never could I know,  
As each one passed…  
That the last, would be the last.  
_

_While the wind blows bright and bitter,  
Through the amber leaves of winter they  
Break their brittle backs across her bow.  
_

_Just one breath out and the world grows colder,  
Fight the war, but not the soldier! And  
One hand moves to protect the other, now.__But we're falling any how.  
_

_Past every city you once have called home,  
Past the thousands of faces that you have known,  
Past the fields of fires, the meadows of one  
We will land in the forest that once was the sun._

- Liam Singer, _One Breath Out_

_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--_--

"You know," Glen smiles a little, anticipating my presence. "Some of us have this theory. About where nymphs come from."

He's sitting, crossed legs bent up around his chest and arms circling his knees, on a little cliff face that outlooks more forest. I don't know how I always manage to find him. Near him is a brave tree, withered by time and wind, a stunted little thing with bizarre bends and twists that somehow managed to cling to the rock.

The night is cloudy, but not overly so – stars burst through the haze, brave pioneers of this world, forcing the clouds downward to create blue fog that drifts in and out of the trees spread before us.

Reluctant to disturb the beautiful creature that is so content to blissfully stare at the sky, I stay partially hidden on the fringe of the forest that leads to the cliff, allowing myself to be wrapped in the darkness the trees provide this late at night.

The midnight sky paints his body a silvery blue over the usual golden brown, the shadows of shoulder blades poking through his bare back.

"What is it?" I murmur, wrapping one arm around the tree I'm leaning on for support.

He turns around, bracing himself on the ground with one hand, to look at me, owl brown eyes meeting my own for the briefest of seconds before he scoots to the side a little, patting the ground next to him.

"Come sit." Reluctantly, I peel myself from the comforting cover of the trees, walking the ten or so feet up to where he's seated himself, less than a meter away from the edge of the cliff. Should I fall, the only thing to break my descent would be more trees.

I seat myself on the ground, pulling my legs up around myself like he. This close to Glenwood, I can feel…something…radiating off him. Not heat, exactly. Like a feeling. Like a golden mirage in a desert, the one you were always afraid to reach out for, for fear that it would shimmer and disappear in the blink of an eye.

"Mostly it's just the southerns." Temperate forests have male wood nymphs, tropical ones – from the south - have females. Just funny, how the world works, sometimes.

"They say that…that we're angels, or the children of angels, sent from heaven to do its work." He murmurs, chuckling softly at the apparent absurdity of the idea.

"Well, it's nice to imagine you have a purpose."

"I do have a purpose." He whispers, eyes tightening, hands digging into the soil surrounding him. Even now, it's easy to see his affect on the land: where before there was cracked, dry dirt, now there is rich black soil. As I watch, tiny, spring green shoots burst through the earth, coming to meet his fingertips.

"I know. I'm sorry, Glen." He smiles my little Glen smile, a weak, quivering thing.

"It's difficult. However many hundred thousand years spent on this planet, never leaving here. And knowing all the while that there are only two ways out."

"Two…two ways out?" He smiles a little, eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

"Out of the cruel monotony. Yes."

"What…wh-what are they?" I'm almost afraid to ask.

"What do you know about nymphs and death?" He whispers, placing one hand on the ground and leaning forward, towards me, his intense gaze eager.

"I…I don't know. I guess…I never really thought about it. Burning works, I guess. And…"

"No."

"N…no?" I'm a bit uncomfortable with our conversation topic: I don't ever want to think about losing my Glen.

"There's only one way for a forest sprite to perish, Cora." He mutters, leaning still closer. He's gone completely human, sunset brown locks of hair framing his sharp face.

"A-a-and that w-would be?" I can barely hold myself together, let alone my thoughts.

"Suicide." He replies, abruptly leaning back to an upright position, cocking his head to the side as if to survey my reaction.

"Why?" He blinks slowly, trying to find words.

"It's cruel to force a creature to live when it doesn't want to." He murmurs.

In an abrupt motion, I feel his hand extend, grasping mine and squeezing a bit. I squeeze back on the warm appendage, reveling in the bizarre kind of heat I feel building in my stomach and in our entwined hands.

He glances back in my direction, running his soft thumb over my palm before letting go of my hand to lean forward, towards me, once more.

"Would you like to know the other way?" He breathes, the scent of pine wafting from his breath.

"The other way…"

"Out. Of the monotony that can easily become our lives."

"Take up golfing?" I squeak.

"Cora." He chides playfully, his mood skyrocketing and mine with it.

It's such a bizarre feeling, having his face this close to mine – I equally want to lean back as far as possible and as far forward.

Perhaps unconsciously, I feel my face tilt to the side slightly so that our heads are at slight angels to each other.

"What, Glenwood? What is the other way that is so…incredibly…interesting…" I barely finish the sentence, my thoughts deviating. There's this feeling radiating off him – like, like heaven. An impossible perfection, waves of gold emanating from his body, infecting every part of my body, sending chills down my spine and allowing a strange feeling to settle in my stomach – one I can't quite place.

Anticipation.

Like there's no ground beneath me, I feel an odd weightlessness, a nervousness born of sparks tickling my stomach.

"Mates. Like two people on a dramatic television show. You watch simply in the hopes that the two will kiss."

"I…I uh…I…don't see -…"

"That's what keeps us going. Finding our…person. Set like an unachievable goal for us. Of course, by now, I had given up hope."

"…had?" I peep, my voice three or four octaves above normal.

"Everyone else found their person. Mostly during the time of the Greeks. Unfortunate for me, indeed." He leans forward, farther, setting off yet more sparks in my stomach, a strange and foreign tingling in my abdomen when he braces himself, arms on either side of me.

I lean back just a little under him, though not completely lying down, just tilted in that direction with my knees bent to the side.

"I suppose the idea of a…a…mate…would be enough to keep a person going for a little while." I manage.

He little smile twitches his lips, his mouth hovering just over mine tantalizingly.

I don't notice when it begins to rain around us, because somehow I don't feel myself get wet. All I see is the man in front of me, basking in the feeling I feel spreading throughout my chest, my legs, my arms, my face.

"I'm just glad that I didn't have to wait forever."

"Yeah, yeah, hm, I suppose that that would be nice." I squeak, trying my best not to hyperventilate.

But despite myself I feel my heartbeat increase drastically, and all of the lines around me seem to blur save for Glenwood's face as his eyes search my own. As if in response to some buried instinct, I lean back further, taking no note of the vague pain in my knees as I run my hands up his chest never breaking eye contact.

But I don't know if I'm ready for –

His lips meet mine in a searing, fiery kiss, our lips burning at each other's touch. And I feel the strange and subtle feelings inside me burst in an explosion of pure joy, of rapturous exhilaration.

"Glen," I don't know how I manage to, but I push him away with the small part of my mind that has retained sensible thought. Though even now, I feel my already weak resolve slipping.

"Glen, wait." I whisper, unable to say anymore for fear of choking on my own desire.

His tawny eyes roam my face, unrelenting gaze causing me to grow weak at the knees – if I weren't already half-lying down I feel sure they would buckle.

Despite myself, I'm unable to untangle my arms from around his neck, no more than I'm able to return to normal breathing.

"No, Cora." He says finally, slipping an arm under my knees and another beneath my back, while I'm still firmly clasped to his neck. He rises, and I with him, carried.

With a deep exhalation, he lifts one arm so that our faces are brought together once more in a deep kiss, our lips moving together relentlessly, my grasp tightening.

It feels so surreal, so impossible, gold spreading through my body and lightening my burdens, I a strangely deep connection inside me to something I know nothing about. Like the weight of the world has suddenly been lifted from my shoulders.

And my god, I can _breathe_ again.

Finally he pulls away, though I don't know why – with his constant expulsion of oxygen and mine of carbon dioxide, I've no doubt we could have stayed like that for days.

"We're done waiting."

XXX

A/N: Oh, don't act like you weren't all just _waiting_ for that to happen.

Probably going to be another update today. Also, just a general note: I'm sorry to everyone who reviewed yesterday because I couldn't get back to you! My email kept screwing up! BUT. I shall…shalleth…whatever…get right on it. Okay? Okay.

I'm glad we came to an agreement about this.


	14. Cats Are Nice

A/N: "Coulda had a V8" my ass. This stuff is disgusting.

"'I meant,' said Ipslore bitterly, 'what is there in this world that makes living truly worthwhile?'

Death thought about it.

'CATS,' he said eventually. 'CATS ARE NICE.'"

– **Terry Pratchett**

I wake in what feels like a hazy dream, though I know I never have to wake up. Everything in my world is golden – I blink a few times in hopes of clearing my nebulous view of my surroundings.

I feel like I'm in a faerie palace. Sunlight streams through an exceedingly tall window in the wall, which is made of some type of yellow stone. The light washes over my hair, turning it in itself a sparkling shade of honey gold. I pull the comforter up, tighter around myself. The blanket is a luxuriously thick satin, with vertical threads of spun gold and horizontal ones of emerald, it changes colors depending on how you shift it, where the light hits it.

Everything is so complete, so perfect, but not eerily so. I allow myself to sink deeper into the impossibly soft and insanely large bed.

I feel so refreshed – gone is the foggy head that I always wake up with, the sore muscles in my back and shoulder, my chapped lips. Like the rough, hard, scarred exterior layer of skin has been peeling away and I'm starting anew.

My world is gold filigree and warmth, cupped in the hand of perfection.

I feel a soft pressure as I roll on my side, something draped over my waist.

Perfect.

"Humans sleep too much." Comes a quiet voice, whispered into my hair.

"Well, we can't all be mythical creatures." I murmur in return, flipping over to bury my face in his neck.

It feels so natural.

And I know there's something I'm on the fringe of remembering, an unhappy topic or something that would take away from this experience, but for the life of me I don't want to remember it. I can barely remember my own name right now. I just feel like everything is so flawless, so careless. All that matters is that I'm in a golden world with my golden man.

"I have to…um…" I don't feel like finishing the thought at the moment, so I don't, and it seems to be okay. He doesn't push it.

We lay there for a little while, tangled in each other.

He kisses my hair softly once, and in response I mark a path of little kisses across his chest and onto his shoulder, every contact leaving my lips burning.

"I have to take a shower." I say finally, sighing and pulling away.

"Later." He tells me, sitting halfway up in the bed.

"Okay." I agree compliantly – it was a halfhearted venture anyways. I don't want to leave.

"Where are we?" I look around for the first time with my head just slightly clearer.

"Your room. You fell asleep fairly quickly yesterday, so I took you back here."

"But…my room isn't a palace…thing."

He chuckles softly, brushing a golden lock of hair away from my face. "I think the forest did it."

"Why?"

"It wants to make you happy, too." He draws his hand down my cheek, and I willingly lean into his touch.

"Okay. Okay. I actually do need to take a shower now." I say, somehow managing to begin flipping off the covers.

"No." He whines, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face in my stomach.

"Glen. I have to get up."

"No." His voice is muffled against the cloth of my shirt.

"Glen."

"No!" He whimpers into my belly.

"Glenwood."

"No."

"I have to go."

"I don't want you to."

"I have to shower."

"Shower later!"

"Sweetie." I place my hand on his head, trying in vain to push his head away. This results in him snuggling closer and smiling against my skin.

I giggle, as it tickles, running my palm down his hair like a pet.

"I'll come right back. Promise."

"You could just not leave. That's even better than coming right back."

I laugh, and he with me. Luckily he relents, as I'm not sure how much longer I could have stuck to my resolve.

XXX

Turns out my bedroom is the only one that…

Well, turned into a FRIGGIN' FAERIE PALACE. I'm sorry, but that's the only phrase to describe what my room became.

"Hey, Chetski." I chuckle at the sight of my cat, perched rather delightedly on my lighting fixture.

"Get down from there, you!" I giggle, swatting at the elusive vampire cat.

Vampire.

Huh.

Shaking my head, I am subject once again to –

OOF. Chet lands squarely on my chest, growling up a storm. I laugh outright at the animal's bizarre affection when he starts vibrating like a jackhammer.

Vampire cat purring. Great hand therapy.

"Che-e-e-e-e-t-t-t…" My voice is riddled with extreme vibrato.

"Drrrrrrrr." Comes his reply, shocking yellow eyes meeting mine.

"D-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-w-w-n-n-n, b-b-o-o-o-o-y-y-y." He steadfastly ignores me, and so I settle for supporting him like a baby, cradling him to my chest.

"A-a-a-l-l-l-l r-r-i-i-i-i-gh-t-t, th-e-e-e-e-n-n, i-i-i-n-n-t-t-o-o-o-o th-e-e-e sh-o-o-o-o-wer w-e-e-e go-o-o."

"Reeeeow!" Comes the feline screech as he catapults off my chest, running away in a blur. I find it hilarious that an animal that doesn't even need to breath is still afraid of getting wet.

Funny vampire.

There's that word again. Vampire.

I step into the searing hot shower. And even as I do, I feel the gold dust around me wash down the drain, my hair return to its usual lackluster shine, my thoughts clear and cold once more. The haze of hormones and loneliness and the perpetually indescribable ability Glenwood has to wash over my thoughts with unadulterated happiness is purged from my skin.

Unable to even stand in the shower, I seat myself in the corner so that the spray hits only my legs, closing my eyes.

I don't remember much from last night – but if I'm to trust my muddy recollection...not much happened. I remember it like a fevered dream – the kissing and the embraces. Mostly it's not a memory…more like an impression. A feeling. I do remember falling asleep fairly quickly – and Glen's comments seem to back me up in that respect.

But that's when it hits me.

The horrid re-actualization of the real world.

Vampires. Werewolves. Bears.

Max.

Oh god, Max.

What have I done?

XXX

After I've toweled off and dressed, I've returned to my OTHER normal self. You know, the one that didn't emerge from a soap opera.

I mean how shallow can I get? Here we are with vampire bears running through the forest, not only possibly killing people but threatening to expose the secrets of a species well-guarded for thousands of years –

And I'm worried about whose _face_ I'm going to be sucking at the end of the day.

I mean get OVER yourself, Cora.

Running a hand through my damp hair, I sit down at the kitchen table, burying my face in my palms.

Maybe, if I sit really still and don't say anything, people will stop seeing me. Stop paying attention to me.

Such a strange change of heart.

FBFBFBFBFB

(A/N: I tried to make teenage Cora sound more like a teenager.)

_You know the immediate issue with transferring schools? You have to go to this horrible hospital and get all these check ups. Because all kids from Canada have rabies, right? Seriously._

_I sit on my hands, my legs kicking back and forth on the waiting bench impatiently while I people watched. I always had a knack for people watching – I can figure a lot of things out just by watching someone for a few minutes. _

_But what good does that do me, if no one can see me?_

_Whenever I'm alone, just waiting for something, I always feel out of place. Like nobody will come for me because it would take such a massively coincidental chain of events in the universe for that to happen. _

_I've always hated hospitals. Not because of the sick people – but because it's so blank. So sanitary and stuff. _

_But no one ever even thinks to give me a second thought or a glance or anything, you know? Just keep passing by the little hippie teen. She belongs outside anyway._

_So I can't keep the little plaintive voice in my head from begging:_

_Notice me._

_The little girl without a heart._

_Somebody notice me._

_"Coralline Regence?" Calls a man who cannot possibly be a doctor. And intern, maybe, but he's completely gorgeous. I mean he's pale as hell, but Washington isn't really much farther south than Canada, so I guess that's pretty normal. But he's like mid-to-early twenties. No way is that guy going near me with a needle. I don't give a shit about his credentials._

_"Coralinne Regence?" He tried a different pronunciation of my name._

_Jeez, you don't have to say it fifty billion times. I'm COMING._

_"Hi." I say shyly, standing up and dusting off my skirt._

_I guess my clothing wouldn't really be considered, like, normal. I mean dude, fuck Abercrombie and Bitch. I'm just wearing a green peasant skirt, and a skater t-shirt: you know, white long sleeve under, blue short-sleeve over. It's really baggy, though._

_So yeah, I don't really match, but whatever. It's not like I'm trying to impress Mr. Intern who's probably practiced on an orange dozens of times so I shouldn't worry! Puh-lease._

_"Hello, Ms. Regence."_

_"Cora."_

_"Hello, Cora. It's nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Cullen."_

_"Doctor?" I ask as he leads me to a treatment room._

_"Yes."_

_"But, you're like…you look like twenty three." He smiles dazzlingly, shaking his head._

_"I guess I just have a perpetually young face, huh, Cora?"_

_"Sucks for you." He laughs, taking me into a blank white room that smells like disinfectant and ammonia._

_I really miss the forest right now. It's like, who needs friends when you've got autotrophs? I know this sounds completely loony, but when I'm in it I feel like it's…listening to me. Alright, that came out much more disconcerting than it was supposed to._

_Just before he closes the door, he's interrupted by a beautiful, yet motherly, figure, speaking to him in hushed tones._

_I don't bother to listen to what they're saying, but the fact that the door is held open for a few more seconds helps me see._

_A guy, he can't be a lot older than I am, with golden skin and dusty brown hair. _

_He walks right on past the room without another glance, eyes intent on something directly in front of him, probably the exit. He seems to hate hospitals almost as much as I do._

_So I'm kind of disappointed that he just walked right on past._

_Notice me._

_See me._

_Find me. _

_Single me out. _

_Somebody, please._

_As if in answer to my prayers, the guy suddenly backtracks, freezing in front of my door. He stares_ _at me, his mouth agape just slightly, his gaze heated and intense. I feel my heart leap up into my throat. He's shocked by something, intrigued, like I'm a long lost loved one he never thought he'd see again._

_And even though I know he can't hear me, and even if he could he wouldn't understand, I mouth the words:_

_Thank you._

FBFBFBFBFB

"Cora?" I'm abruptly risen from my random flashback in artsy sepia tone, trying to place the face of that doctor.

Funny, indeed. That I wanted so much to be noticed and now I'd give anything to melt back into a crowd of ignorants.

"Hey, Glen. Sorry. I suppose I lost track of time." I whisper, grinding my palms into my eyes.

"I understand."

"You do?" I cautiously open one eye, and look past my tree man down the hall leading to my bedroom, which has returned to it's normal shabby state.

"Yes. You haven't had the time to think about this that I have. I will wait until you want to talk. Good?" Despite myself, I can't help but smile.

"Yes, Glen. Good. Very good." He smiles at me, like a kindergartener to whom I've just bestowed a gold star, before disappearing out one of the windows.

"Whaddya think, Chet?" I call, and before I even blink the lynx-like feline has leapt from…_somewhere_ up above me, pacing around on the table.

"Should I feel guilty?" I ask him, and in response he seats his little cat bum on the table and stares at me blankly.

"Huh?" I wiggle my finger in front of his face, tickling his nose.

"At_ew_!" comes the little vampire cat sneeze, his head rocking in a spasm.

"Wuddya you tink, widdle guy? Huh? I suppose you think you and I just ought to elope too, huh, widdle fella?" I giggle as Chet scrunches up his face, tail twitching with amusement.

"Purrrr, reom?"

"Yeah, that's true. School day. I should get some stuff together. I can't call in sick, can I?"

"Rrrrop."

"Fine, fine. I'm going, captain bossy." I bundle him to my chest, kissing the top of his freezing head and heading for the Freezer Of Doom in which I shall embark on a brave Quest for the Crappy Frozen Waffles.

When I grow up, I wanna be a crazy cat lady!

A/N: Okay, so that was boring. Turns out there's this part between the beginning and the climax, see, and it's called the MIDDLE, and it seems I'd forgotten about it's existence. So I shall now figure out the details and hopefully the plot will start…you know…MOVING, again. I just felt like writing that flashback…it seems like a little mini-short-story, huh? Sorry. Random.

I. Am. The Babble Queen.

Don't none of y'all start challenging me. I mean, I can name like thirty different cory cats and Panaque blue-eyed plecos are frickin' GORGEOUS.

Oops. I should probably eat…food…now.

'Allo, bunnies.

-abruptly curls into a cannonball and catapults into my own little world-

So long, suckers.


	15. And The No Good Day

Nerds already rule the world. We just do it very quietly. – **Anonymous**

--

Yes, I'm cold,  
Cold as ice and so now,  
You'll know  
How our story is supposed  
To go:  
I say yes  
And then I'll say no.

- Chris Bathgate, Yes I'm Cold

--

"Who threw that?" I wince, just barely dodging the screaming projectile that is the paper airplane which just whizzed past my ear, crumpling in a bravely smoldering heap on the floor.

No one even looks up from their tests.

What? 'Not even a real class' my foot. I give tests. I affect your college application. Heck, I'm harder than an average class because you can't just give me your stupid little vampire smile and go 'SHING! _Bedazzled_!!' and have me swooning over you like an idiot fan girl.

Have you ever lied to a superior or someone that you care about? I wouldn't recommend it. Really. I mean I haven't even spoken to Max yet, but…

I have that stones-in-my-gut feeling. Like slugs slothing their way over my stomach, that grey area of right and wrong solidified into a quiet creature that seeps its way into my abdomen and spreads, leaking into my throat.

I blink back tears. Do I tell him? I don't know. I mean technically we didn't finalize anything or whatever. We never actually said we were dating each other exclusively. Or even that we were dating, really. I mean why is it his place to know?

Oh, shut UP, Cora. I should feel guilty. I mean, I tell him, right, then he reacts and stuff and…I mean, I'd be pissed, but it's not his place to be pissed, is it? It's just. I mean.

"Ms. Regence?" My head snaps up from the book I was fake-reading, Alice standing there, short dark hair pulled back into a pony tail.

"Are you finished, Alice?"

"No, uh, I just wanted to ask a question." She smiles wanly, holding out her test.

"What did you mean by this question?" She points to question 5, how are vampire myths based on real life conditions. However, I doubt that that is the pressing issue: on the paper, in neat, beautiful script, is a slanted note in the margin:

_Tell him. Get it over with. Trust me._

I read it over a few times, unwilling to believe that this tiny creature could even know – of course, I'd forgotten about her ever-so-convenient future-seeing or whatever.

"Uh-uh-…" I stammer a bit. "Explain which parts of vampirism are influenced or based on diseases we learned about in class."

She smiles gratefully at me, so convincingly, in fact, that for a second there I wonder if she was honestly confused about the question – until she winks at me.

XXX

"Hey, Max. Thanks for coming to pick me up."

"Least I could do was surprise you, right?" He smiles gratefully at me. He's opted for casual Geek Wear tonight, consisting of a t shirt bearing the saying "Evolution is just theory. Just like, you know, gravity."

Hee.

"I haven't seen you for a few days. Everything okay?" He smiles, putting his hands on my arms.

"I-" I can't finish my sentence before the guilt rises up, choking my voice.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, mermaid! What is it?" He asks, his voice collecting concern as he goes on.

"I – I'm – I didn't mean to. It's just. I'm sorry! I –" My voice is choked by another sob, as my body heaves in and out. I have to get this out – I'll break down later.

Wow. This parking lot has a looooot of defining moments, huh?

"Cor? It's okay. Just say it."

"I – Glen – he –" I don't finish, pressing my quivering lips together, blinking back tears.

He goes tense for a second, closing his eyes. "Something…happened, right?"

"I didn't – we didn't – I mean, we didn't sleep –"

"Okay." He says, dropping his arms. "Okay. Okay. That…okay. That…makes…sense. You two know each other and you don't know…if…you can…trust me…" He says it half-heartedly, like he doesn't believe it himself.

"Um…" He says quietly.

"I'll…I'll walk home, okay? Just…"

"I'll call you." He says quietly, fiddling with the zipper of his coat with one hand and opening the car door with the other.

"Wait, Max." I plead, grabbing his arm. "I…" I don't know what to tell him. I know what I'm feeling, but is that really anything I should say out loud? I'm not sure how to convey this feeling into words. And even if I could, I'm not sure he'd want to hear it. What do I say? That I feel like my life is being cut into little bits and pieces and different people are each staking their claim? That do a certain degree the only reason I'd avoided Glen for so long was because I was certain he didn't think of anyone that way – let alone me? That I can't even begin to make a decision? That when it comes right down to it –

I don't know.

That's all there is to say. I. Don't. Know. This is the kind of decision I always relished in stories – because it was such a deliciously arguable concept, but I knew in the end it wasn't up to me. Well shit, man, it's up to me now. It's up to me and it's a lot less fun when you're dealing with real people.

Can't I just skip to the end of the book to see who the character ends up with? Or maybe a scale I can weigh my choices on?

"I don't want to give up, 'kay?" His eyes search my own for a minute, perhaps a quest for sincerity.

"Never, mermaid. Just give me a little." He shoots me a tiny, insincere smile before getting into his car.

I knock on the window, and reluctantly, he rolls it down.

"What?"

"You won't…tell anyone, will you?"

"About you ch-"

"No! No, not that!" It stings a little, to know he thinks of it as me cheating. It is, though. "About…about, you know…"

"The-" He leans in closer, whispering. "The vampires?" He breathes.

"Uh huh."

"Of course not." He tells me gruffly before snapping the window back up and accelerating away.

Though I feel like I should be doing more, I head back inside the building. I have tests to grade…and stuff. I'm not really sure I can face going home.

XXX

I seat myself in my desk once again, staring at the manila folder full of tests.

I decide to procrastinate as much as possible, and start off with checking my email, which is empty as always. I then progress to cleaning out my desk, ridding it of the dust bunnies that have collected themselves in corners and in the backs of shelves, of the desk detritus that will accumulate inevitably.

"Ms. Regence."

"Hello." I reply, refusing to look up.

"Emmett thinks he has a way to find the bear things."

"Well that's good for Emmett. Maybe he'll get extra credit."

"Ms. Regence, why don't you look at us?"

"Because, Rosalie, I've convinced myself that if I don't look up then you're all just voices in my head."

"But Ms. Regence, we need to –"

"What, Ms. Cullen? What do you _need_? Do you need to further fuck up my life? Do you need to find your stupid bear things? Go talk to Glen. I'm just…I'm just stupid bait. Leave me the fuck out of it." I spit, the bitterness of my words palpable, leaving the taste of rotted spinach on my tongue.

Looking up, I see almost the entire Cullen family sans parents, standing in the corner.

"Ms…Ms. Regence…we…"

"What? A teacher can't have a break down? Please get out of my classroom. All of you."

That's when I realize. It doesn't matter if _I_ find the bears. I'm not going to fight them! I'm not going to do anything! I'm not involved in this at all.

Stupid time of the friggin' month. Now, you see, book characters never have that problem. If I were a fictional character, I would never get hungry at inconvenient times, I wouldn't sneeze during the climax, I wouldn't get 'this is the song that gets on everybody's nerves' stuck in my head, and I wouldn't go through menstruation unless it was needed to prove that I'm not pregnant.

BLOODY. REAL. LIFE.

Ugh.

"Sorry, Ms. Regence." One of them says, hushed voice just a tone above whispering. And hurt.

I groan. I had this friend growing up who always took me WAY too seriously. Always 'I didn't mean to hurt your feelings' (like I had any), blah, blah, blah. Seriously. Are you that easily fazed?

"Oh, jeez. I'm – I'm sorry, guys." Happy now? "What would you like to tell me?"

"We don't want to bother you." Rosalie tells me vacantly.

"Guys, I am having a really, really bad day. And unlike the lot of you, I don't have someone's shoulder to lean on whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself. So you'll excuse me for being slightly more hateful than usual."

"That's okay Ms. Regence. You're still my favorite teacher." Says Alice brightly, and in a blur she's sitting cross-legged on top of my desk, staring down at me with bright black eyes.

"Hello Alice."

"Hello!"

"Is there something you'd all like to tell me?" She grins.

"Emmett wants to!"

I swivel in my swively chair to see the rest of them standing together in a clump, the perfect family portrait.

"Emmett?"

"We track them."

"Track…them…?"

"You know. Walking through the woods, sniffing poop and following broken twigs and stuff."

"Do you know how to do that?"

"I think it'll be harder than usual, but yeah."

"…all of you?"

"Uh huh."

"And why can't you just sniff them out?" They exchange glances.

"Because they don't have any smell."

"I thought vampires could smell other vampires…?"

Edward purses his lips, looking at the floor.

"Exactly."

"Are you saying they aren't vampires?"

"Who would create an army of vampire bears?" I roll my eyes.

"I'm sorry, would Care Bears be more to your taste?"

A/N: I had to do another one of these, because the reaction last time was so great: should you decide to become one of the elite awesome who decide to post a review, tell me this…

The best brand of paperclip, why you insist on eating grapefruit when an orange will do, and the **question **of life, the universe and everything.

Sidebar: Out of curiosity, if I were to say at the beginning of a chapter 'listen to this song for this chapter here is where you can find it for free in thirty seconds', how many of you would do it?


	16. The Grand Bunny Master

A/N: That's it. You guys all, collectively, need to read more Douglas Adams. I was SO hoping someone would get that. Sigh.

As an aside: it's a pretty silly chapter today. Here's hoping it makes up for all the pointless angst. And, because you said you'd do it MNYEH: seeqpod dot com (website, no duh), and search for 'sharpen up those fangs', you should get one answer. I mean, it's not really pivotal, but…it fits pretty well. Hee.

--

"This is really not how I envisioned spending my Saturday." I grumble, leaping nimbly over a thick root on the forest floor. I'm not the most graceful of people, but I've never once tripped in the forest.

"Really? We do this regularly." Emmett shouts from somewhere up ahead of me.

"Yes, well, I eat solid food." I shout ahead, though I know my volume isn't necessary.

"Pff. Sucks for you!" Comes the reply as I listen desperately for some evidence of their movement, even though I know I won't hear anything.

"I…I apologize, for him." Says Rosalie, who's just miraculously appeared in front of me.

"Oh! Oh, uh." I will never get used to how they do that. It's awesome.

"That's okay." I finish dumbly, coughing.

"Look! I found a slug! Rose! Rose, come look at the slug! It's huge!"

"And what kind of slug would it be, Emmett, if it's so huge?"

"Aw, Ms. Regence! It's Saturday! Don't make me _learn_!"

…banana slug. It'd be a banana slug.

There's sort of a whispering. Oh, he's a sneaky vampire, isn't he? I can hear you.

All of you.

Dude. Don't try to sneak up behind me. I am way too good for that.

"Ms. Cullen."

Silence.

"Alice. I know you're there."

Generic forest sounds.

"Alice, you're wearing a bright red pea coat. Even you can't blend in with that. You're in the tree."

No? Still not giving up?

Folks, this is why I went camping by MYSELF when I was eighteen.

"Alice. Cullen. Get down from there."

"…no."

"Alice."

"I don't want to!"

"Alice, you are not a five year old."

"Says who?"

"Father time. Now get down here and look for bear tracks."

"It smells like wolf down there."

"Too bad. Get down here."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll fail you."

"I'll just change my grade!"

"No you won't."

"But…I don't want to get down."

"I-" I grabble, looking to Rosalie, who hasn't moved, also staring at the suddenly-elevated-to-a-height-of-fifteen-feet Alice. "I don't know what to do with this."

"Alice! I'll tell Jasper about that thing you said about the Beatles!"

"No you won't. I can tell." Rosalie looks back down to me, shrugging. _I tried_.

I snort. "Maybe it's just best to leave her there. She probably wouldn't help anyways."

Rosalie grins slyly. "Indeed. She'd likely hinder us, in fact."

"Yep." I let a clever smile twitch my mouth.

"Rosalie Hale! I know what you're trying to do! I know what you're trying to do and it won't work!"

"Yes it will." Rosalie tells the tree.

"No it won't! I won't let it!"

"Fine." She says, walking away with a flourish, gliding gracefully through the trees to find Emmett.

I shrug. Okay. Whatever. If she wants to spend her time in a tree, let her.

I stuff my hands in my coat pockets, ambling along at my own pace, alone with my thoughts. Max hasn't called me for a few days – and I wonder if he's waiting for me to call him. And of course, Glen hasn't bothered me for even longer – so, what, do I make first contact? I don't know. I mean when it comes right down to it I'd really rather just tell them both to leave and then I'll go back to Canada or something. Then…THEN, I will be a crazy cat lady.

Maybe a crazy bird lady. I haven't quite decided yet…mm…

No no! Crazy lizard slash FISH lady! Now that, my friends, would be a new level of crazy.

"Ugh! Okay! You win!" Shouts Alice, and I see a tiny red and white blur suddenly appear in front of me.

"Why, Alice. I didn't even know you were here."

"You know, for a human, you're very good at manipulating people."

"I pride myself on the talent."

She growls, large black eyes sparkling in the dim forest pseudo-light.

"Come on. Let's find us some bears!"

XXX

"What do you mean you didn't find anything?"

"I mean, we found less than something."

"But I didn't find anything either!"

"You didn't?"

"No." Edward pauses, surveying the people before him.

"Did anyone find anything?"

Everyone shifts uncomfortably, obviously embarrassed.

"I found a slug."

"_Emmett_."

"I did!" Rosalie fake-slaps him in the arm and he winces.

"There were no scents, nothing – that shouldn't have been there. In fact, a few things that should have weren't as well."

"Like what?" I ask, lounging carelessly on a conveniently couch-shaped (ish) log that happens to be right where we've gathered. I swear, these are put here just for me.

Actually…

"Even along the paths, there didn't seem to be any humans. A few, here and there, but not in the normal level. And…" Edward winces.

"Bunnies."

"What?"

"There weren't any bunnies."

"Did the bears eat the bunnies?"

"It didn't seem like it. No blood, anywhere."

"So…" Don't think Watership Down, don't think Watership Down, don't think Watership Down…

Cora. The bunnies did not run away to greener hills. Bunnies are stupid. Bunnies do not band together and rebel against the leader bunnies. That book is not good for mental health.

"Ms. Regence?"

"Huh?"

"You…you trailed off there, for a second."

"Oh. Well, maybe they got scared off."

"Okay…"

"What? Do you need some archaic and manipulative reason for the bunnies to leave? How about the grand bunny master called a meeting. That's why there are no bunnies." The GBM! I need to grow up.

"Fine. Aside from the…bunnies, there was nothing?"

"Nope."

"No…fur, no droppings, scratches, bloodied corpses?"

Edward smiles. "Oh, did we forget to mention the pit full of bear ravaged rabbits and the scent trail leading to their cave?"

I glare at him, and he looks back, indignant.

"What? I can't make jokes?"

I growl a little bit, deep in my throat where no one can hear it. Look, if you're funny, be funny. If you're not funny, don't be funny.

Oh, ow! Stupid – ow! What the - ?!

"Ms. Regence, there appears to be a squirrel dropping acorns on your head."

"_What_?"

"It's…" Even Rosalie giggles a little bit. "It's just…standing there…and every time it finishes with an acorn…it drops it on your head. I'd move if I were you."

Of all the times, Glenwood. Of all the freaking times. He's always loved to play practical jokes on me – you should have seen this mess he pulled when I was camping with a few friends senior year.

The trees started singing. Like actual singing. He made. The trees. Sing. It was the single creepiest moment of my life.

"Glenwood!" I hiss, ducking and covering my head with my hands before tunneling the hell out of there.

"That is not funny!"

Everyone is staring at me rather bizarrely, but I know he can hear me. Aw, Glenny poo.

Wow. Was there something in those waffles this morning? I am acting on an abnormal level of weird. Which is saying something.

"Just wanted to remind you that I'm still here." The voice does not originate from a single area, but is borne on the wind – whispered only in my ear and inducing an involuntary shiver.

"Like I ever forget." I murmur.

I clear my throat, staring at the four vampires who are all giving me collective…Looks.

"Don't ask." I tell them. "So how do we go about finding the bears?" I offer, in an effort to change the subject.

The all exchange glances.

Finally, Edward steps forward. "We wait for them to come to us."

A/N: So? Raise your hand if you want to see a flashback in Glen's POV! Guaranteed to be all things hilariously innocent and filled with pointless fluff. And then, of course, we'll come back to this world, but I just wanted to know if anyone would want to read that.

ALSO! I just put up a new story, The Emotion Thief, and because I'm a terrible person I was wondering if anyone would mind telling me if it's any good or not. Or not. I don't care. Pff. I don't need ANY OF…YoU…I…-proceeds to lose momentum-.

Reviews, pleasems.


	17. What Music Is

A/N: Well, folks, here ya go. The scene that started the story…(just for clarity, it's a flashback).

Now you have to do the thing you promised you'd do, because it's actually necessary: seeqpod dot com, search 'kaki king o'clock' and listen to any of the three sound recordings (those are the lyrics further down). See? Free. Told you. But before you listen to that one, also 'plantage' (by Under Byen). Believe me. Worth the trip.

Now, if only there were a way of simply removing their bad. If there were a way to convince the vampires that perhaps, if they were willing to cooperate, the wolves would quit it with the tearing up of my forest, maybe the nastiness would finally stop.

I let out a low growl of frustration, leaping to the ground from my perch in my tree.

I pause to inspect the bark. Several beetles have nestled their way into the cracks of my tree, a spider dancing its way across a dew-covered web.

Somewhere, a hawk swoops down and carries with herself her prize of a small rodent. I feel both the terror of the mouse and the triumph of the bird, the final relenting and acceptance of death and the disappointment in the realization that she'll just have to look for more food in a few hours.

I snort. I feel no sympathy for either creature – if I lamented every prey animal and healed every wounded bird I would be spent before the day was out.

I consider traveling by wind, dispersing my essence so as to better observe my forest. But not today. Today there's a foreigner in my home.

I sensed its presence as soon as it dared cross a single toe into my territory. Something…different.

A rumble in my throat, I further perfect my human form, not bothering to remove the bark from my person. I stalk through the trees, darting from bush to limb in a manner like that of a bobcat, which I'd perfected eons ago.

I grow closer to the disturbance, still unsure of what it is, exactly – not a wolf, not one of those bloody vampires, no. And it isn't Elsa, as her and her beau are still…What was it she said? 'A rockin'? I don't understand what on this green earth she meant.

Rocking…a baby?

I'm not sure if it's popular or not, but I once heard this rather disturbing horror story like that. A cradle was placed in treetops by some heartless fiend, intent on destroying the child – and evidently it worked. I'm almost certain one of the lines was "and the cradle will fall." It's one of the most morbid things I've ever been subject to – why that woman insisted on singing it to her babe, I don't comprehend.

I don't comprehend a lot these days – this world is moving too fast. Things change too much.

I did like the 20s, though.

As I grow yet closer, I catch a glimpse of the intruder.

Or…never mind. There is, however, something growing on my tree.

A particularly large tree, it used to be the only tree in what used to be a clearing. Therefore, it had not had to focus so dearly on growing upwards, instead branching out with many graceful, thick limbs.

And there's something growing on it. Why is there a human attached to my tree? It appears to have attached itself by way of rectum to one of the branches. And is proceeding to beat a piece of deceased tree in addition.

What is that thing? And what the mother of chaos is it doing to that wood?

It shifts comfortably in the tree, moving the wood onto it's lap and draping her hands over the wood. It's strangely shaped, too. A wide, curved bulge starts it off, tapering slightly in the middle before bulging out again, then abruptly stopping and turning into a thin stick that shoots off from the bulging shape.

Now what's she – it – doing? She draws her fingers lightly over it, creating a humming sound. At this, she laughs delightedly. I've never heard a laugh like hers before. It's…like clouds. So happy, carefree – but not without a price. Like she knows what hardships there are in the world and is determined to face them with a sense of humor. How strange, for such a lovely sound to come from a sapiens.

"Hum…" She whispers thoughtfully, lilting voice floating through the trees and she wiggles closer to the base of my tree.

For a minute, I let down my guard and once more feel my forest around me – and the immense and foreign feeling that exists only where her skin touches the bark of my tree.

How…strange.

"Okay, okay…uh…" She snorts.

Determined to get a better look at the creature, I glide through the trees with calculated grace, staring from just beyond the shadows as, to my vision, she rotates and I get a better look.

A tall female, barely out of the juvenile stage, sporting cinnamon hair. I see now from the front that her wood has string drawn taught across its surface, and a hollow beneath them.

Her face is sharp, with a chin in the shape of a square and eyes that sparkle. An everlasting smile tugs at pink lips, and I see why she was dragging her fingers down the wood before: every time she strums one of the strings, it creates another humming sound.

"Okay," She sighs, a gentle breeze. "Here goes nothing, huh, forest? I don't suppose you'd like to listen with me?" She laughs again.

She is wise. For a human.

Of course I'll listen to you, odd one.

She makes a sound in her throat, like the beginning of an automobile engine.

Then she begins to play her fingers over the strings, other hand shifting on the bar that sticks out from the curvaceous bit, pressing down on certain strings. She plucks them individually, so that the hum begins to form something like a modified bird song, but slower…more relaxed.

"2 o'clock you're still sleeping,

When you wake up you'll be in such pain." She does not speak like a normal human being now, instead her voice tilting and playing with the sound it makes, elongating some words and shortening others, letting them drift up and down in pitch as they soar.

What a delightfully innocent creature!

"And I wait with a plate piled high with my love,  
Which you  
Won't  
Eat  
From."

She pauses here, her eyes shut and her mouth twitching upwards in a sad smile, still carefully plucking the strings with her fingers.

She seems to feel every note, letting her own words come out with the wood instead of her mouth, speaking twice at the same time. It's oddly beautiful.

"Love you think you can contain me,

But the future is already known." Her voice is quiet, yet at the sound I feel my own self calm, and the forest with me. And as she plays with her toy, I feel – I feel something. I don't know what, as I haven't felt my own emotions in so long they've become alien to me, but the point is – _I_ feel something. For myself. Not the forest. What is this magic she can work with her plaything?

"We give up our rest and the best of us

Though we'd be bet-ter off,

Alone." She ceases her lilting, soft hum of a sweet voice. I don't stop to wonder at the bizarreness of her words, because she's still dancing her fingers on the wood, mesmerizing, right above the hole. It's an amazing sound.

I wonder…

Out of pure curiosity, I try something on the wind. I pluck it, like she does her strings, and it creates a humming similar to hers, more bell-like. Though the young animal does not stop playing with her toy, she looks up, curious.

So I do as she does. Every sound she makes, every movement, I mimic it to the best of my ability by mentally strumming the air around us, vibrating it to create sound. She looks around, as if she is unsure that she's hearing her sound doubled, wide and innocent eyes probing the depths.

They rest on me for just a second, and though I know I'm safely hidden in my forest, a jolt of another emotion shoots through me. I want her to know that I am here. I want to help her make this sound. I want to help. I want…

I want to be closer. Such a curious thing. I want to see her up close.

Stealthily, this time I glide upwards like a comet on a twisting staircase, curving around so that I may land on the branch opposite her. I watch as the dim rays of sun that have managed to fight their way through clouds brush the top of her head, as slim fingers strum her knickknack.

Still pacing even with the tantalizing sound she's created with her rudimentary bauble, I begin to play outside the edges of the sound, building it, letting the wind whip around us in a whirlpool of invisible color, cutting us both off. And I feel her build with me to the climax, finally exploding in powerful sound.

"There's no need,

To be so,

Terrible

When you know,

I would do,

Anything

For you!

This is so

Laughable,

Whatever

Happened to

Knowing that

This was for

Ever?

File off the

Sharpness off

Feelings so

I'll be pro-

tected from all of your

Evil.

When you come

Round my love,

I'll be gone,

Finally done,

Never to

Come to your

Rescue…"

I let the swirl of strong colors and textures and sounds fade with the dying note of her voice, curiously fulfilled…what is this magic she creates with naught but a simple human voice and a simple toy?

"Wow," She whispers, casting her hypnotic, wide gaze all around herself, admiring my forest.

"Thank you." She whispers. "I didn't know forests could make…music. Even if it's just in my head." I almost can't contain myself.

She thinks she imagined it! I wonder if she'll come back. I wouldn't mind imagining a lot of things with her. Strange, that I'd want a human to return. But I'm not done with this oddling. Or her… music.

XXX

A/N: Still on seeqpod? Good. Good. Okay, now search 'Chris Bathgate' and find the songs titled 'Serpentine', 'Auld Lang Syne', or 'Buffalo Girl'. Any of those will work. Thank you and good night!

I nearly laugh out loud, thinking back to the day that I first laid eyes on Cora. The day I learned what music was.

What is this plastic triangle she's stabbed into the ground? Bright red cloth creates a triangular prism, an ugly scar in my beautiful forest. She didn't used to bring…_tents_. When it was just her. She'd bring a blanket and sleep on the ground, in my meadow – the one I made beautiful so painstakingly. But not with _Max_. The ungrateful underling had to have her all to himself in that prison, instead of letting them see the stars.

I'm still plagued by visions of what might be happening in there. She said they were camping out to see if maybe the bears would hunt them out. But until I'm willing to betray her privacy and purposefully listen in on her spoken words, I'll have to settle for the tiny bits I can gather from my perch, crouched on a branch above them.

I hear a laugh, I rustle of cloth. I shudder, thinking up horrible images of the two kissing, or piling together for warmth like hibernating bears, or in a tight embrace. I'm not sure what it is that humans do with each other. It's not something I've bothered to research excessively in my time. I just know I preferred when she'd come out here and we'd share each other's company without saying anything.

Cora. My Cora.

No. No, not mine, mine is possessive and makes me sound like the abusive husband from the soap opera. That was a silly show. I liked it. It didn't take itself seriously at all.

It takes all the patience I've learned in my countless millennia not to tear down their makeshift building and tell them to stop torturing me. My heart…physically started to hurt.

"Did you hear that?" comes his voice, assumedly in response to some far off noise. I growl at his sound. So…rough, compared to her. So cold.

"What?" Comes her voice, sending a pang through my chest.

"That noise! That…crashing or something."

"You think it's a bear?"

"Not really, but it can't hurt to check." There is a rustle of polyester, then a sharp slide.

He chuckles, like a heartless villain bent on destroying the Catina family fortune!

"Duty calls, mermaid." She is not a mermaid. She belongs in the forest, not the ocean. I'm sure of it. Coralline Regence is not a mermaid at all.

But she did know she belonged with me until you decided to come in and construe her mind. Her innocent, sweet mind. This angry emotion I'm feeling – like heated, directed anger, wanting what he has. I wonder if other people feel it.

_Why_? Why? Why did she so willingly accept him? Why must she be so frustratingly timid around _me_? Why can't she _see_ what I see?

A/N: Okay, yes, it's a nothing of a little chapter. Glen is _really_ annoying to write! I can't use normal expressions. I mean, I couldn't say 'cleared her throat' because he wouldn't know the expression 'cleared her throat' so I had to make up some junk about car noises. And then all that description when all I wanted to say was 'guitar'. Humph.


	18. The Geek Game

I don't work well with others. Honest. I work well towering above others, however that prospect only presents itself when I'm teaching.

And now I have to work with bloody vampires.

Well, the vampires are perfectly clean. I just used that word for emphasis. Oh dear, oh dear oh dear.

"So, we divided the forest into sections here, see. Each pair takes one – but we all have to agree on a set date, otherwise it makes absolutely no sense. Everyone with me?" Edward casts his glance around the room, to Bella, Alice, Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper, whom I finally get to see up close.

"Why do we have to be in _pairs_?" Whines Alice.

"For safety's sake. Just – just do it please, Alice." She 'harrumphs', but says nothing more.

"Well that's all well and good for you couple-dy people, but what am I supposed to do?" I grumble. What? Max hasn't called me yet. I mean it's only been a day or two, but still. I'm pissy like that, you see.

"Really? Of all people, I thought you had plenty of-"

"Shut up!" Hisses somebody, kicking another somebody in the shins. The other somebody whines in pain. And I try desperately not to giggle.

"We need a system of quick communication." Edward continues obliviously. Well, not entirely obliviously – he shoots a very to-the-point glare at somebody. Yeah, I'm not really paying attention who.

Because 'somebody' brought up a good point.

I hate love triangles. Plus, it's not really a love triangle at all, is it? It's more of a love…vertex. Love V. Two people directing their interests at the same person. See? Now, if it was like Max likes Cora who likes Glen who likes Max (ew), then it'd come full triangle and THEN it'd be a love triangle. Just saying. From now on it's a love V. Say it with me. Love V.

"Wait, do we know that they're still…there? I mean we saw it – _she_ saw it once." Bella casts a sideways and not-too-inconspicuous glance in my direction.

"You telling me you haven't noticed how _off_ it is out there?"

"Well…" I snort. Haha. And I quote my eighth grade math teacher:

'Listen, I am your teacher and you need to stop correcting me because I am your teacher and I'm always right.'

Pretty much word for word. Not the brightest bulb, she was.

"How about this: just go camping with Edward for two days and should you, in your lovely rendezvous, happen to see a huge bear lumbering towards you with murder in its eyes and blood on its teeth, consider calling us, why don't you?" I grin.

She grins right back. You know, it's nice to have another human here, especially when she's female and I don't have to be careful what I say about her.

"Oh, wait. Charlie might not…" I quirk my eyebrow.

"Charlie's your dad, right? Chief Swan?"

She blushes. "Yeah…"

"Well, how about I write a note that says it's for a school thing?"

"How does your class –"

"Wood nymphs. Extra credit." I wink at her.

XXX

"Alice! You do not need a hair dryer in the middle of the forest!"

"Bella, I, unlike you as you've made so clear, do care about personal hygiene and beauty."

"Look, I doubt Jasper will think your hair looks bad wet."

"Yes, but I do."

"_Alice_." Alice pouts, wide-eyed. Well, lookit you, not growing out of your toddler mentality. Aw.

"Ms. Regence, please tell Alice that she doesn't need a hair dryer in the forest."

"Alice. I have camped here more times than I care to count, and believe me, even if you wash in one of the brooks, you don't need a hair dryer."

"Have you ever used a hair dryer?" She asks accusingly.

"I-" I freeze. "I don't have time in the morning! That's beside the point!"

Bella pauses midway to her truck, backtracking to look at me. "You bathe in the stream?"

"I wash my face and hands, sometimes I wet my hair. Sometimes I go swimming."

"Ms. Regence! Do you go skinny dipping?!"

"No, Alice. I never have and do not plan on ever skinny dipping in the foreseeable future. I wear a t shirt and pants."

"You swim in your clothing?"

"Yes."

"You don't have a bathing suit?" I feel a pang of fear ripple through my chest. I still remember the day that Glen introduced me to one of the water nymphs, who called themselves the daughters of Poseidon. Mermaids, in the worst sense of the word possible.

"No." In fact, I only ever go swimming in the forest, if I'm reasonably certain that Glen is near. I've met the things that go bump in the night.

And there's a reason we forgot their existence.

"Why not?"

"I just don't." I reply blankly, picking up my small pack of toiletries and an extra set of clothing. I'd flipped back and forth between inviting Max or just waiting for him to call me – but if he called while I was away, he might not call again. So he agreed to come with me, even if camping's not his thing. He says he'll meet me in our designated 'spot'.

"But why not?"

"Alice. Leave the hair dryer, and the makeup, and you only need one extra set of clothing. I thought you hunted regularly."  
"Yeah, but then I wasn't actually living in the forest! I had stuff to do! This is different!"

"How?"

"Ms. Regence!" She whines. I can only thank some higher entity that she has a mother figure, or that girl would be a disaster.

"Alice!" I whine in the same tone. Haha. I can do it too!

Okay, so I'm not much better. You wanna make something of it?

Grumbling something unintelligible, though I'm fairly certain I heard the word 'revenge', she reluctantly pulled out a massive amount of designer clothing and other beauty…uh…stuff…

"Alice, you don't need shampoo. In fact, I won't allow it. You'll just wash it into the river. A small amount of that stuff can be really damaging."

"What?"

"The shampoo, Alice. Unless you enjoy killing helpless baby fish."

"OH!" She cries, further removing hair care stuff. This is just ridiculous. There is no way that she brings this amount of, well, crap, when she hunts.

XXX

"Hey,"

"Hey yourself." I smile a little bit, tentatively rubbing the back of my neck with my hand.

"So…"

"So…" My mind is literally a barren landscape right now.

Oh look, a tumbleweed.

"I…uh…how's work?"

"Work…is good. And how are your students?"

"Good."

"That's…good."

"Uh huh." I can hear the crickets in my mind.

"Max?"

"Mm?"

"Are we…okay?" I'm not sure what answer I want. I know the one that would make everything a lot easier. But I don't want to lose him.

Do I?

No.

Well, would it be the worst thing in the –

That doesn't matter. It'd still suck.

You know what? The ball's in his court. I can only wait.

"Well, let me see…" He says thoughtfully, taking a step closer to me.

He places a hand under my chin, tilting my head up to look at him. Self-consciously, I hug my pack to my chest. I feel my pulse increase, just slightly.

And gently he leans in, allowing our lips to meet as I lean further into him in a warmhearted, mutual kiss. I feel his hand travel up to caress my chin, the other on my back, pulling me closer as our lips move together softly. I feel a careful shiver spread through my body.

Too soon, he pulls away, smiling down at me.

"Yeah. I'd say we're alright."

XXX

"Wow. Were you a boy scout or something?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Well, the Generic Red Prism Tent. It's like the thing little kids draw when they're doing pictures of camping."

"Well, excuse me for not being well prepared." He mutters, poking out his tongue at me.

I snort. "Hey mister, you're the one who wanted to bring a tent."

"Oh, and I suppose you just sleep on the bare ground or in a tree?"

"No!"

"Well, then."

"I bring a blanket sometimes." He laughs, shaking his head.

"You are a complete nut."

"And proud of it, mister." I tell him, pushing open the flap of the tent that has been haphazardly staked up in the middle of my – the forest.

"Whoa! Easy there!" He warned me as I felt a resistance trying to enter the tent.

"Huh?"

"The thing on your back. It's too wide to fit."

I guess I'd forgotten I'd slung my guitar over my shoulder. In my habitual camp packing, it's just become so routine. Maybe after Max falls asleep…

"Sorry." I mutter, shrugging off George – look, don't judge. I was sixteen and I felt the need to anthropomorphize everything. Which included naming my guitar.

I carefully lay my guitar down just outside the tent, glad it was in its case.

"I didn't know you played." He whispers, placing a hand on the small of my back.

"I don't anymore. I haven't for years. I guess I just grabbed it at random." I feel a twinge of guilt for the lie, but I don't like other people listening to me.

"Oh. Well, that's cool. I played trumpet for about a week in eighth grade."

"And it didn't pan out?" I laugh.

"Well, I was busy with math team." He coughs. "Plus there was the robot building contest." He mutters, gripping his hands behind his back awkwardly.

"Aw." I coo, much to his annoyance, leaning up to give him a peck on the lips.

It lasts much longer than I anticipated.

XXX

I sigh contentedly, resting my head on Max's shoulder and pulling my own sleeping bag further up around me.

"Okay. Lessee…_gymnothorax funebris_."

"That's easy. Green moray."

I feel him chuckle, my own head moving a little with his chest. I love the way his smell and the smell of the forest seem to combine so well. Sweetly, I place a chaste kiss on the center of his collarbone, through his t shirt.

"That's why you're the mermaid, Cor. Your turn."

"Terrestrial mammal?"

"Well it's that or give me crap about nucleotides."

"Meh."

"Come on. You go now."

"I'm going, I'm going! Let me think for a second." I pause, trying to think of a good one.

"Okay. Easy one. Lynx rufus escuinapae."

"Come on, you're not even trying. Mexican bobcat."

"Thbblt." I raise my head and stick out my tongue before allowing the pink and fleshy muscle to return to my mouth.

"Opistognathus rosenblatti."

"Boy, you're just full of 'em today aren't you?" I say, wrinkling my nose.

"Why Cora, if I didn't know better I'd say you were avoiding answering the question!"

"Good thing you know better."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear an answer in there."

"Bluespotted jawfish!" I whine, punching him in the chest with no real determination.

"Fine." He chuckles softly, looking down at me.

On an impulse, I hook my fingers into his shirt, pulling his mouth down to mine.

Hey, I'm an adult. I can do what I want.

Also, -SQUEAL!-. Yay! He likes me!

My arm slides around his neck, elbow hooking around and forearm pushing against the back of his head to keep us fused together. I don't bother to break away for breath, instead opting for nasal breathing.

And just as he starts getting into it, he pulls away, and the warm feeling in my gut with it, looking up slightly.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" I groan. To be honest, I hadn't been paying much attention.

"That noise! That…crashing or something." Er, no. I feel kind of guilty for zoning out instead of paying attention to what we're supposed to be doing.

"You think it's a bear?"

"Not really, but it can't hurt to check." I 'mm' almost imperceptibly, pulling him back down to me for a few more wet kisses until his thinking clears again, and he rises, much to my disappointment.

"Duty calls, mermaid." He whispers against my mouth.

"Put it on vibrate and call it back later." I mutter, rising up for one last prolonged, lusty kiss before he slips out the tent.

A/N: Okay, two choices for next chapter: we can have some quality Glen-Cora time (no guarantees of what will or won't happen), or we can kick the plot box one chapter closer to the climax. And of course, by we I mean me. I don't want to move too slowly for anyone. But, in case this sways anyone either way, next chapter is the only spot I can figure to add some Glen-Cora time. So, thoughts?


	19. Aux Champs Elysees!

A/N: Well, you asked, and I hopefully delivered!

Guess how blasé and horribly sad I am? I didn't realize it was my birthday today until my friend wished me happy birthday. Literally. Best conversation ever:

Friend: Happy birthday!

Me: …what?

Friend: I said, 'happy birthday'.

Me: Huh?

Friend: It's your birthday.

Me: …(pause)…OH! Wait, seriously?

Friend: You forgot your own birthday?

Me: I don't know! It's not something I think about excessively!

Friend: Wow, (my name). Just, wow.

And so, because I'm just like this, you get an awfully long chapter today ;). For my birthday. Because I'm just inverse like that.

--

When I wake up, my watch politely and indifferently informs me that it's one in the morning.

I roll over on my back, staring up at the peaked surface of the tent, the red nylon cloth shining a dim purple in the moonlight. I don't like it in here, closed off from the forest. It smells of plastic and dirt. Ominous shadows, cast by trees and amplified by imagination and natural light, blot out patches of ceiling.

I sigh, kicking my feet once, twice, three times, to free myself of my sleeping bag. I feel blindly around for my pack, and upon retrieving it, I open the little pocket that no one ever thinks to check. In it, I keep my swimming 'shirt': a long, thin white shirt with too-big sleeves that billows around me in the cool night air, like the women in books who always get attacked by things. Oh well.

I pull it on before removing the shirt I was already wearing from underneath, pulling it out one of the sleeves awkwardly, still wearing some little sleeping shorts. It's a warmish night.

I step out, incredibly glad that Max hasn't come back, because while this shirt is perfect for swimming, it's a little revealing. It clings in what I'm sure someone trying to look attractive without being whorish would describe as 'all the right places'; and is a bit low cut for my tastes. It does reach to my mid-thighs, however, which is fortunate. Sleeves flare out a bit at the ends, the edges frayed where I've worried them with my fingers. I feel kind of surreal, graceful.

On an impulse, I untangle the hair scrunchy that had been holding my hair in a braid, letting loose amber waves cascade down my back, tickling the base of my spine. My bare feet rustling softly on the ground before me, I head instinctively for the large pond I always visit. It's so beautiful at night, the moon reflecting off the calm surface of the water.

My walk there is quiet, the wind tickling my bare legs and combing gently through my hair and I flutter like a little white candle through my – the dark forest, flitting between trees.

When I arrive there, it's more amazing then I remember. I'm not scared to step into the water, but I savor the moment, letting the breeze flutter my top in little ripples across my stomach, playing with the hem.

Kneeling by the edge, on the end where I know the water is a good four or five feet deep, I admire the cool, crystal reflection on its surface, the undisturbed air about it. How I seem to fit flawlessly.

I drag the tip of my finger across the surface, creating little Vs in my wake. Soundlessly, I enter headfirst into the water, the rest of my body slipping in afterward. I do not open my eyes under, instead feeling the gentle tug of my hair drag in the water, kicking my legs lazily.

It is near impossible to describe the feeling in this pond. Comfort. Safety. Acceptance.

Reluctantly, I come up for air before I return once again to my invisible world, letting bubbles escape my mouth.

Joyfully, I propel myself forward in a log roll, spinning around and around and around just beneath the surface of the water.

I feel my shirt drag me back slightly, the silken cloth caressing me in the only embrace I'll ever need. And I know that the eerie white cloth is creating a light blue, mobile patch beneath the pond should you be looking from above. I wonder if anyone is.

It feels different in this body of water. I feel somehow – better. Superior to my usual self. Sexier, prettier, more intelligent, more integral. It's total bullocks, I know.

After a few luxurious minutes, I head for the shallower end of two or three feet, still swimming like a mermaid with an up and down motion of my legs at the same time.

I raise my head above the water, bringing my hands up to push my hair back and out of my face, my now soaking wet shirt probably partially see-through. Ah well. In all my times here, no one has ever disturbed me at the pond. Perhaps they can feel how…forbidden it is, should be, to anyone else.

I run my fingers across my scalp, creating chunky stripes in my sopping hair, licking my lips free of pond water. Sounds gross, I know, but it isn't.

I feel my top cling to me all over, plastered to my abdomen and chest, my shorts even worse. The water is thigh-deep, meaning that what little of my legs rise above it have water droplets similar to the ones peppering my face, sliding down and collecting in various areas.

"Mmm." Is all I manage to get out, the pure deliciousness of the moment, combing my hair with my fingers.

"I see where your nickname comes from." Comes a voice, quiet, but very…physical. Coming from a certain place.

I open my eyes, turning my head slightly to see Glen perched atop a rock in all his nymphonic glory, eyes fixed on me.

I chuckle softly. "Not quite. You're the only one to see me like this." I say softly, allowing my voice to lift with the wind, it flattening the cloth of my shirt against my stomach.

I shiver a bit when I feel his gaze roam my body, from the legs poking out from the pond, to my clinging black shorts. His eyes linger on my abdomen and the wet, translucent fabric covering my chest, then my pale neck reflecting moonlight off its glistening surface, finally coming to rest on my face longingly.

For once in my life, I feel just a bit…in control. Or part of me is. Controlling the other part of me, the thought of what has already happened and the consequence of what might happen. Yes. That part of me is overpowered by the small but powerful reckless center of my body, the one that tells me what it is that I want _now_.

I hate that I even have the ability to think like this. But his eyes, god, his eyes. They speak volumes.

"Nevertheless…" He murmurs, though I can hear him from my distance all this ways away. A small smile twitches at his lips, and not the kind I usually see on his sweet face.

No. This one is…different, somehow, from those. God, sometimes I feel so insignificant near him. He can be so innocent, and then in a flash he becomes so much older. So intense.

His eyes dance over my body again, and I fight the urge to shrink back from his heated stare, his scrutinizing gaze. Afraid I won't meet up with the standards for beauty.

I pull down at the edges of my sleeves with my hands, taking a long, deep breath. He stops his examination at my lower abdomen, and I'm sorry to say that the shorts don't quite come up to my belly button, which is really rather low for me. I never intended on being seen like this.

But then I realize what it is that he's looking at so carefully, why there's such a look on his face. My scar. The one from the bear attack. Smooth and graceful, at times the word scar doesn't apply. Because I've always thought of it as too beautiful to be a scar. It rides from my right hip and curves up slightly, finally ending with a little flourish right at my naval. Through the sheer shirt, it must be more visible than usual.

Well, hey, at least I'm wearing a bra.

"You have to stop dwelling on that. It wasn't anyone's fault." I mutter, looking down and tugging the shirt forward so that loose fabric covers my scar.

He doesn't say anything, and until he does I refuse to look back up, draping my arms over my stomach in an effort to hide myself, staring into the blackening forest. There seems almost no dividing line.

Blue moonlight flirts with the surface of the pond, painting everything a hazy azure.

I hear a small plop, like a stone being dropped in a puddle, and look up to the rock on which he was previously towering above me to see that Glen has vanished.

Before I can even begin to get mad at him, he rises like some type of living Excalibur, headfirst, from the water, standing only inches in front of me so that I have to look up to see his face. _So_ _close_.

His baleful eyes meet mine, and silently I feel him reach up with one hand, placing four gracefully pointed fingertips along the length of my scar through my shirt, looking down at me. Though I know it's meant as a kindness, I can't help but shiver at his gentle touch.

He needs not say a word, for I can clearly see it in his eyes and actions.

_I'm sorry._

And what for? What happened wasn't his fault.

Or perhaps I am misreading him. Though I doubt it.

I try to control my breathing, my heartbeat. I have no doubt that I fail miserably. But the look he's giving me, after the sadness has passed – what is it? Awe, almost. Like _he's_ the one afraid of rejection. Afraid to touch me, for fear that I'll shatter.

"Cora," He whispers, searching my eyes.

I smile at him, blow a breath of air in his face. "Boo."

"Do you love me?" My breath catches in my throat, his question is so unexpected. I have no idea how to answer him with my words. I'm no English teacher.

"I-" I choke, looking away. I feel his fingers start to slip away from my scar, but I stay his hand with my own, looking back to him.

"I'm sorry. I should not have asked. I forgot. It is not a simple fact for you." You see? And just like that, he's right back to his old self. Somewhat.

"You must be cold. Are you cold, Cora?" I nod numbly. And somehow he knows exactly what to do, tracing both hands simultaneously on either side of my body, flooding me with warmth.

"May I carry you back?" He asks innocently. I can help but chuckle once or twice before nodding my head. Only he would ask permission. He sweeps me up from under my knees, cradling me to his chest though I don't mind. I hadn't realized until just now how tired I am. I snuggled myself further in to his torso, heaving a few deep breaths of his heady, woody scent.

I might have been imagining it, but it seemed like the trip back took much longer.

XXX

"Cora. Wake up, Cora. It is daylight now." I'm gently lifted from my dreamless slumber by Glenwood's voice, his arms still tight around me, shaking me.

Did I - ? I wake up in his arms. He's holding me bridal style high up in an oddly familiar tree, leaning against one of the branches as he wakes me up. Maybe this is why it took so long to get back.

"Oh." I whisper blankly, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. Out of habit I look down to see that we're a good fifteen feet off the ground, which probably doesn't sound like much down there but is quite a lot from up here.

Out of instinct, my arms tighten around his neck. I look down to see that I'm wearing the same clothes from last night when I went swimming, which, if I were with anyone but Glen, would be extremely embarrassing.

"I'm sorry." He looks immediately apologetic when he sees my shocked face. "I had every intention of bringing you back. But…he wasn't back yet, and I feared for your safety."

"Shame, shame, playing favorites."

"Is Favorites a game?" I groan. Him and his stupid naïveté.

"It's an expression, Glen." He pauses, considering it.

"Ooh." I shake a little with silent laughter, resisting the urge to plant a kiss on his bark-covered cheek.

I rest my head comfortably on his chest, and we sit there for a little while, neither one of us saying anything. I watch the animals around us that seem to flock whenever Glen stays in one place for any period of time. Like they're sucking up to the boss.

A curious chickadee hops onto one of the branches near us, cheeping and twitching his head from side to side to get a better look at us.

By my estimation, we sat there for a good ten minutes, enjoying the silence. Finally I, the weak human, manage to break it.

"You know I've been thinking a lot lately."

"Always a good practice to keep. What about?"

"Choices, mostly." He stiffens underneath me.

"Ah."

"I keep on coming to one conclusion, though." He stays completely rigid.

"And what conclusion would that be?" He asks, voice taught.

"Choices suck." I tell him, pouting, feeling him relax beneath me. The hand supporting my neck starts to rub up and down my back soothingly.

Suddenly, he bursts out laughing, an unrestrained smile on his face.

"What? What's so funny?!"

"Nothing, it's just…"

"'It's just'…" He smiles down at me.

"That was a very you thing to say."

Now it's my turn to laugh.

"Oh, it was, was it?" We both chuckle a little, but they fade as soon as I look at him and the very real romantic aspects of this situation become clear.

"Was it, now?" I whisper, my voice losing all it's joking pretense.

And our faces are too close for me to stop now. I can't waste this moment. He smiles curiously at me, and that familiar longing in the back of his eyes ventures to the front.

I place my hands on either side of his head and pull his body closer to mine, melting our lips together in a searing, single kiss that doesn't last near long enough for either of us.

When I pull away, he looks me over once, as if this is a moment he is determined to brand into his memory, before asking me,

"What was that for?" I survey him quietly before answering.

"Just for – I don't know. Being here, I guess. Knowing me." I blush like a schoolgirl.

"You say things like that…"

"And?"

"Cora." A pang of guilt shocks my chest.

This is completely unfair to the both of them. Especially since deep down I know, I just _do_, who it is that I know I'm going to end up with. Jealousy over me, though, seems like such an impossible subject. I'm just waiting for him to get sick and say 'you know what, if you want you can have her. Whatever.' Or something.

"Glen…"

It scares me that I don't know whom it is that I've been cheating on.

To my shock, I see his eyes glistening with emotion, on the verge, almost, of tears.

"Please." He whispers. "I can't take this anymore."

"Take – take what?" I squeak just a little bit. Like I don't already know.

"You're so close, but…so, so impossibly far away." As if to show me, he tighten his arms, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer.

He's right. I know I'd want an answer.

I reach up, caressing his cheek. He blinks, slowly, the sunlight inebriating the both of us. But I don't feel quite so - overpowered, this time. In my right mind.

I know for a fact that I can live without Max.

"Glenwood," I say, my voice apologetic, even though I have nothing to apologize to him for.

I'm not sure if he's expecting my answer or something completely opposite in the tone of what he says next.

"Just say it, Cora." His voice cracks.

"I love you."

XXX

A/N: Sorry, I know, sappy and clichéd, but I couldn't resist. Jeez, Nit, it's like all that empowerment stuff never even happened. Arugala!

XXX

"Would you quit it?"

"How can I? You have no idea how long…" He laughs. And I realize that before his 'carefree laugh' was really just less careful than others. He had mood dampeners. He just managed to overcome it. And now it's infectious.

He comes up behind me, snaking his arms around my waist and pulling me tight against his tree-trunk like chest, burying his face in the hollow of my neck.

He trails loving kisses up my shoulder, smiling against my skin.

"Well, yeah, it's easy for you to be happy." I grumble, unable to keep the giddy smile from my own face, turning around in his arms. Mr. Dryad. Aw.

But I'm dreading the soon-to-come and inevitable conversation with Max. But he'll be okay. I can tell. Right?

"I'll be right there when you talk to him."

I frown. "You-"

"Hiding. In case he grows…especially frustrated."

"_What_?"

"I'm just saying-"

"Listen, Glen." I hiss, eyes narrowing. "Just because he ended up being your…your competition," I spit the word, "doesn't mean he was or ever will be _abusive_." I can't believe he would even…

"That's not what I meant. I meant in case, as some vile act of revenge, he decides to spread the miraculous news of his little…vampire discovery." I forgot. Anything the forest knows, Glen knows.

I feel kind of dumb. "Oh…"

"I may not have liked him, but I did not think so very ill of him, sweet."

"Don't call me that." He laughs then, pressing our foreheads together.

"What'll it be then? Honey? Sweetheart? Sweetie pie? Sugar…blob?"

"That last one sounds good." He giggles a little bit.

"Sugar blob it is, then. I have a proposal for you, blobby."

I giggle myself. "And that would be?"

"I want to take you to Port Angeles."

I pause. "You don't…why?"

"Because. It is only fair for me to see your world, isn't it?"

"But you'd…" I try to think of a reason why not. After all, the bears can wait, right? It's not like anyone's seen one yet.

"I won't embarrass you. At least, not with my ignorance of pop culture."

"Then how-" I'm interrupted gladly when he leans in, pressing our mouths together in a deep kiss, caressing my face with his hands. Warmth explodes in my body, a sense of belonging, of priority. The world can wait. This is what I want. I'm regretting my decision less and less.

There's the added bonus of the promise that there's no way I'll ever be bored around him – god, he must have so many stories to tell. I've only heard a meager fraction.

I'm quickly discovering how easy it is to lose my bearings kissing Glen. I stop paying attention to my surroundings, as this seems something that takes my full attention.

"Mm, Cora," He mumbles in my mouth.

"Mm?"

"There appea-" He pauses, losing his train of thought and towing mine away with it in another kiss.

He places his hand on the small of my back, pulling me closer, deeper as I hook my arms around his waist, pressing our bodies together.

"Phone," He groans finally, reluctantly.

"But-" I sigh, pulling our mouths apart and going over to my bag to grab my stupid. Stupid. Phone.

"Hello?" I sigh, trying to eliminate the dreamy quality in my voice. Hey, can you blame me? I'm standing dressed like some maiden in a fairy tell who is currently running hot with a dryad. I'm surprised I haven't fainted yet.

"Cora! Thank god, you finally picked up!"

"Sorry, I was – " I shoot Glen a guilty look, receiving only an ecstatic and eager smile. The last thing I needed was a call from Max.

"Sleeping."

"Look, that doesn't matter, just –" He pauses, breathless. A rustle of leaves magnified by static. "I think we found them."

"Them? _Plural_?"

"Yes, Cor. A bunch of them. Right by – " He freezes again, voice dropping to an almost imperceptible whisper. "By this big outcropping of quartzite." I glance up at Glenwood again. He'll know where that is, even if I'm not completely sure.

"Hurry, Cora. Hurry! They're-"

There's a crashing noise. Then the phone goes dead.

A/N: Does that count as a cliffhanger? I should hope so. And those of you who are mad at me for it, BLAME PEPPER66. It was her idea. So there. I hope that satisfied you moderately. Now I shall binge on chocolate because it's my birthday and I feel like it. Also just thought I'd add this in here: I ran down an up escalator today. Even though there was a down escalator.

Why, you ask?

BECAUSE I CAN.


	20. The Stuff Of Nightmares

"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

**- Edmund Burke**

Well that's just friggin' _peachy_, ain't it?

Is this karma? Because if this is karma then karma and I need to have a serious, face-to-face conversation about its timing. Come on! I can't enjoy _one day_ without this decision looming over my head without the stupid climax showing up?

"Cora?"

"Quartzite outcropping. Now." I whisper breathlessly, my voice snagging on my throat.

"What-"

"The bears. Glen, something – do you know where it is?"

He frowns. "Yes."

"We have to go now. By whatever means necessary. Come on." I rush forward, grabbing his arm and trying in vain to pull him in some direction. It's like trying to push a boulder.

"Cora, what happened?"

"It's Max. He says they found a bunch of the bears, and, and-" I choke. It was so unfair of me to drag him into this. So awful. Especially when I'd known the entire time that it was useless to keep trying. And now Max might –

He might…

I can't even finish the thought in my head.

"By an outcropping of stone?"

"Yes, Glen, I'm begging you, please. We have to go now."

"_They_ found the bears? So, more than just Max?" The former bitterness in his voice is gone now, but I can't even…

People could _die_, Glen. How does he not see this? How is he so…so calm?

"Please, Glen, we have to go _now_."

_Because he's not human._ I shiver. But I knew that.

"Of course. I am sorry." He tells me.

Then everything is a blur.

XXX

I feel him slow, and I with him, as we evidently near our destination. Finally, a break in the trees reveals a rock that is really more like a cliff face, rising abruptly from a hill and stabbing the sky with a violent point, a cave-like depression at the base.

But that's all.

That's it. There's nothing else here. Nothing.

"Cora, something…"

"What?"

"Something happened here."

"What?!" I squeak, shaking while simultaneously trying to choke down inevitable tears. Oh god. This is my fault. It's all my fault. They might all – they could all already be dead because of me. Stupid, stupid me. Oh god oh god.

"It…nothing died, Cora, but…"

I take a heaving, shaky breath.

"Follow me." He says finally, stalking into the forest with determination.

XXX

"Get behind the tree! Alice! Alice, they can't climb trees!"

"How do you know?!"

"Cause it worked for me! Please, Alice! Get up there!" The distressed cry of a boy sends shock waves of teacher response through me, a tugging, protective feeling.

The sounds I can hear, even though I can't see them yet – oh, god. Tearing, crashing, snapping, ripping, clawing, screeching. My heart withers inside my chest. It seems like I'm moving so slowly –

Oh. Oh, please, please say I'm having a terrible nightmare. It wouldn't be the first like this.

But none of them were this vivid.

All of them – the Cullens, including Jasper, all of them are here. And they're outnumbered.

I don't know how many bears, bear-wolfs, wolf-bears, whatever you want to call them…they're all here. Twenty, thirty, forty…too many. Even one would be a problem.

But each great silver beast shakes its shaggy head with ferocity and rears up on its hind feet. They're taller than I am by at least a foot at the shoulder, with giant heads and gleaming, bone-white teeth and chillingly black eyes. The downpour of rain serves only to add to their terrifying appearance.

A clap of thunder accompanies a roar of inhuman proportions, a deep throated, horrible sound that tears at my ears and claws at my heart.

Each person faces one, and the others seem ready and waiting to take the place of any that fall.

Strange – it would be more affective for them all to attack at once. Wouldn't it?

Alice's perch high up in a pine tree is now much, much less amusing. In fact, I'm downright scared. I can't think. The world has no more reasoning for me.

I note with absent terror Edward, crouching and circling and lunging and backing up and crouching again, in a fatal and ironically graceful dance with one of the beasts.

The stuff of nightmares.

Rosalie herself does not attack outright, instead darting between trees in the hope that her hunter will grow confused and slip up, trapping himself or allowing her an avenue of attack. She's a smart girl.

And almost directly next to her is Emmett. Oh god, no, not Emmett. The bear thing has him in a determined death grip, steely jaws clamped around his neck as he struggles against it, trying to maneuver his legs up to kick the beast in its belly, straining against the ground helplessly.

I don't see Max anywhere. Anywhere.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I won't let it happen.

"Cora!" Hisses a voice.

"Max?" Please. Please, let it be him. He doesn't deserve to die. He didn't do anything.

"Over here!" He says. Desperately I whip around, willing my heart to stop breaking. Not all of them. They can't all be here. How could this happen?

I see him, hiding behind a tree. I don't begrudge him his apparent cowardice – there's absolutely nothing a human could do here. I feel tears run down my cheeks uselessly.

God. Everything about me is so useless. Everything.

"Help them. I can't. You can. Help them."

"Why can't you-"

That's when I see: there's blood on his shirt. A great deal of it, so much so that I wonder how I managed not to see it before. I chill runs through my body when I see the long, dark gash on his stomach.

Just like mine.

"Oh god, Max! Oh my god!" I cry, rushing over as close as I can to him, pressing my hands to his still-bleeding wound.

"No."

"What-" He places his hand on mine, neither of us caring about the blood that he smears on me.

His blood.

"It's not that deep. I'll be fine. Believe me – I wouldn't lie if it were fatal. Help them. 'Kay?"

"Max-"

"'S okay, mermaid." He grins absently, like this is just a normal conversation. "You go save the world. I'll still be here."

But what if you aren't? What if this is the last time in my life that I'm ever going to see you?

My hand flies to my mouth, and I choke trying so hard, _so hard_, not to sob. It's not as easy as it may sound. Just see for yourself.

"I" That's all I say.

He smiles, watery. "I know. Me too."

Still pressing my trembling lips together and trying not to die a little on the inside, I back away, fists clenched behind my back.

"Help Emmett." I choke to Glen, heaving great breaths and trying to will away my tears, swallow them back in my body.

Rigid, he nods, gazing at the boy struggling so gallantly with the beast before zipping towards him in a determined line.

The beasts. This isn't right.

Someone's made a mistake up there. This wasn't supposed to happen here. I was supposed to go on teaching my class of students, and all of them were supposed to be human, and Edward and Bella should have just gotten married and moved away, and I should be at home grading papers with my glasses perched on the tip of my nose.

Instead I hear the helpless shrieks of Alice, trapped in the tree by the bear which roars and butts its head repeatedly against the trunk. It'll fall sooner rather than later.

"Alice! Alice, can't you see what it's planning?"

"No!"

"But I thought your gift worked with vampires too!"

"Ms. Regence…" she whimpers, clambering yet higher in the tree. "Ms. Regence, it's not working. I can't see anything for them. Not what they're planning, nothing."

Nothing. How is that possible?

"Oy!" I screech at the creature trying to desperately to destroy her. Something snapped, deep down inside me. I will not let that thing go anywhere near my student. I'd sooner die.

It continues to attack Alice's tree.

"OY!" I shout louder, lobbing a rock at it's head and making successful contact with a satisfying clank.

Come on, you stupid lump. Look at me. Look at me and forget about her.

The bear freezes, it's great shaggy head staring blankly forward. Unnatural.

Suddenly a snarl erupts from its throat, a terrible flapping. It puts one in mind of cold, rotten wood shutters snapping and twisting and disintegrating in whipping rain, that eerie sound that chills right down to the bone.

I hear a screech: "NO!", absently wondering if it came from my own mouth or someone else's as I watch the beast advance on me, trampling the ground before it.

But no one else can help. They've got their own demons to deal with.

So to speak.

Out of pure human instinct, I dive to the side, rolling in a crouch – which I assure you looks cool in movies, but is not nearly so graceful in real life – and knocking into a bush.

Unfolding myself, I almost laugh out loud. You see? Now, falling in a bush isn't supposed to happen when I'm being attacked by Les Evil Things.

A growl.

I open my eyes and find myself face to face with a monster.

A black nose leads further on, traveling up a long, chalky snout. My gaze reaches its eyes.

Like two huge, round black marbles, they hold no light – instead reflecting it away like dark mirrors, letting nothing in or out – if there was anything in there to let out. They are completely void of emotion.

But somehow I feel like I'm being sucked in, anyway.

Funny how the world works. Isn't it.

It's face consumes my entire field of vision, all I see it black and white and my own frightened, scratched, bloody face reflected in its eyes.

It's got me pinned. It's got me pinned to the ground and it's not getting up until I stop struggling.

Stop breathing.

I might as well be gone already.

A/N: Haha. I hate it when authors leave you off in the middle of the climax. But having the ability to do it myself is kind of fun. Or is it REALLY the climax?!

Anyway, I thought that after that lighthearted chapter I ought to do something a little darker.


	21. All Kinds Of Sad

And then, just like that, it was gone

And then, just like that, it was gone. The immense pressure on my shoulders released and I can breath again.

I can almost convince myself that it was a dream, until my hair snags on a bush as I sit up, the small pain the catalyst for the aching heart I've just acquired.

But then I soar when I hear voices, desperate, shouting voices:

"Alice?!"

"Jasper!"

"Edward!"

"Emmett?"

"Rose!"

"Is everybody alright?"

A pause.

"I'm good. But what's this beetle thing?"

"That's a firefly."

"…oh. How bout everybody else?"

"Fine!"

"Kind of glad we can't get bruises."

"Well, I'm kind of confused. Did something scare them away?"

"Not that I saw."

"Wait, what about the humans?"

"Oh, right. Uh, Ms. Regence?"

There's complete silence. Wait, that's me.

"I'm fine. I am, however, caught on a bush which is proving massively uncomfortable."

I hear the soft rustle of footsteps grow closer, and The Hulk – sorry, Emmett – leans down before me with a huge grin plastered on his face to help me up.

"Er, Emmett."

"Yep?"

"You've got…" I move my hand to my own neck to signify where his marks are.

"I've got what?"

"Uh…"

"What?"

"You've got…holes…in your neck." I make little circles with my index finger on my neck, just in case he doesn't get it.

"I do? Shit. It's gonna be hard to explain that to Esme." He pouts, fingering the large apertures spaced evenly right next to his Adam's apple.

"I don't suppose you'll just let me drain the dead bear so I don't have to go hunting like this?"

Dead bear?

"What?"

He frowns at me, quirking an eyebrow. "Yeah. Your boyfriend and I pushed it into a really big puddle and then it stopped moving. Right before the rest of them left."

"Show me." I demand, trying to stare him down unsuccessfully.

So he smiles like he's done extra credit and now he'll get that A plus he'd been hoping for yay wa-hoo and leads me to the carcass of one of the beasts.

The relentless rain somehow makes this surprisingly hopeful situation more lugubrious than it would be usually, washing the blood off my face and blotting my clothing.

I notice absently that I'm somehow now wearing jeans and a t shirt, as opposed to my previous outfit. I wonder if that was his doing.

The creature is lying, motionless, in a small pool of water on its side, trunk-like legs spread before it. Its eyes are not closed, as I had been hoping – because, despite what movies might want to tell you, nothing can die completely gracefully. What frightens me most, however…

It's eyes are exactly the same. That glazed over, reflective shine, it hasn't changed in the least. It's impossible not to imagine it suddenly snapping out of its torpor and rising to charge at me again with a terrible cry and a bloodthirsty grin.

And I wonder to myself: does it look alive now, or did it look dead before?

"Are you sure…?"

"There's no heartbeat."

"There wouldn't be anyways." A few of the others emerge from the trees, slowly drawn to the motionless beast like moths to a flame, until all of the Cullens are watching it.

"It's dead, Cora. Believe me. It's dead." Edward says quietly, eyes never leaving the carcass.

"Oh," I breath.

Timidly, expecting it to rise up at any second, I approach the animal. One foot in the water. Two.

I wade towards where it lies, in water three or four inches deep, not caring about the water filling my sneakers or soaking my socks. I kneel down beside it, my jeans turning shades darker from the tannin-stained water.

The beast doesn't move. Cautiously, I extend my hand, hovering over it. This is the bit in movies where it comes to life and devours me before the eyes of everyone else.

It does nothing. I place my hand on its head, drawing my thumb down the fur. Strangely, it reminds me of the stuffed animal I had when I was a kid (I named it Bunny when I was four, and by the time I realized that was dumb, changing it would have just confused him.). That not-quite-real feel, like plastic.

Curiously, and assured that it is now dead, I run my hand down its side, surprised to feel it consistently smooth and free of any lumps. I don't feel the rib cage, a muscle, nothing. The thing is pure, uninterrupted beast, through and through.

But it's more than that – does that make any sense to you? It's got an eerie, inhuman beauty, an unnatural attractiveness not of this world, a deadly grace. A small part of me feels some remorse for the creature. It doesn't seem quite like its own choices led it to this end.

It almost reminds me of when I learned about the Holocaust in grade school. I kept thinking that there was no way that this mass genocide was simply because these people wanted to kill. That they must have had some better reason, because real, pure evil doesn't exist in the real world. Everybody has a conscience. They couldn't have taken life from so many millions without some deluded reasoning that was right in their eyes. Right? They must have thought that they were helping the world. They must have had some excuse.

But I couldn't come up with a better reason than hate. That's what this feels like, this right here. These things. They must have had a better reason for attacking than simply wanting to.

Animals don't kill for fun. That's a privilege retained only for humans. The 'higher species'.

"Oh bear," I whisper, hoping against hope that no one else hears me, or sees me push down its eyelids. Even monsters deserve sleep. That's what Glen always told me.

"Alice," I hear a tiny splash as she darts over to me.

"Yep?"

"Could you get your father – Carlisle – to look at him? Try and find out the cause of death?"

"Oo-kay." Reluctantly, I raise myself from the puddle, all kinds of dripping wet.

I see all of them staring at me with this dazed kind of look, like I'm made of glass.

"Sorry, guys. First near death experience. I'm told it gets better." I smile weakly, limping slightly towards the safety of the trees.

Silence behind me for a minute, and I'm almost afraid that they're all going to rush after me and ask if I'm okay. I don't know if I'm okay. And none of them could help, anyway.

"Max…?" I call quietly, shuffling my quiet and squelchy way towards where I saw him last. What if that was the last time I'll ever see him?

No. I can't think like that.

I hear no response.

"Max!" Maybe he's unconscious. Sometimes people pass out from pain. Happens all the time, really.

"Max." My voice goes completely monotone when I step behind the tree and see nothing there but blood. His blood.

Please don't let him be dead. Oh god, please.

Breathing heavier now, I realize that he might have simply run away. I think I'd know if he were dead, really. I'd just get that gut feeling.

"Glen!

"Glen! I need you! The bears are gone!"

…silence.

No.

No, no, no. I need him right now. I need him even more than I need to know that Max is okay, I need him more than I need to know if those bears are coming back. I need him right now like I need water and food and sleep and books. I need my happy tree man to tell me he knows exactly what happened, and that everything is going to be okay and that we'll find Max, and I need him to hug me to his wooden chest and kiss the top of my head and make me stop crying inside.

But he's not coming.

"Maybe he's chasing some of the bears down. Or helping Max find a safe place." Rosalie appears behind me, places a stony hand on my shoulder.

"Sure, sweetie. You tell yourself that." I hiss-grumble, shrugging my shoulder out of her grasp.

Both of them. Gone. And despite a million possible reasons, I know exactly what happened.

The bears weren't here to kill us. They were here for them. They were here to kidnap Glenwood, maybe even Max.

"They were taken, Rosalie. You know that perfectly well." How could that happen?

An hour and a half ago, I was happy. Ecstatic, really. I'd finally for once in my life accepted the fact that I'd fallen in love, I kept half-squee-ing with joy about things, my next lesson in class was…

Was…

Human-supernatural interaction. I'd thought that it was so fitting at the time. How did my entire world come crashing down so quickly? How did I ever have so much to take away?

That's what my brother always said to me (yeah, bro, you were three years older, clearly that made you so much wiser): the only reason we get good things is so they can be taken away. We're happy because we know it might leave. I'd believed him then. I believe him even more now.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Tragedy is supposed to be spread out, not happen all at once.

But it's not tragedy, not yet. They're both still alive. The forest would mourn if Glen were gone.

"We…" My voice quavers.

"Yes, Ms. Regence?"

"We have to find them. The sooner the better. We have to find them now."

A/N: Uh-oh spaghetti-Os! Now raise your hand if you saw THAT coming. Yes, you can expect quite a lot of these from basically now on. Problem is, I've got a pretty good way of getting them all into jeopardy, but I have yet to figure out how to get out of it. I keep having those problems.


	22. Evil Mutant Ninja Lessons

A/N: Do you know how HARD it is to write angst when you're in a giggly mood? I mean I went all-out, listening to Liam Singer and turning off the lights and reading the most angsty fanfiction I can get my hands on…didn't work at ALL. I listened to a song in which the main lyrics were 'would you join me in death?' followed by 'would you die tonight for love?' (NOT by Liam Singer, who is actually a genius). You can see how desperate I was. No success. So, sorry if this isn't up to par with all the 'me so sad' stuff I've been lumping on the chapters lately.

The feminist movement did happen, right? And there are all those books about not needing someone in your life to complete you. Blah blah blah?

Right. Exactly. Pff. I don't need no lousy men.

Okay, well, yes, but I want Glenwood. That's different. Because. Just, well, BECAUSE. I DO. It's completely ridiculous and trivial for me to be sitting here, telling students things that will just go flying out the other ear, when just about the only two people I've been involved with romantically are out there, somewhere, in god knows how much pain. And I can't do anything about it until three o'clock.

I glance at my lesson plan. No way am I doing the resurrection/reanimation thing today. I refuse to deal with death.

Shit, man, we're ahead of schedule anyway.

"Faeries! You guys know about faeries." I cough, flipping through my stack of lesson plans. Now, I'm an organized person, but only on certain days of the year. The week before school starts – the Harvard librarian would be proud of me. Every day for the next year is planned. After that? You have to form a hunting party and equip yourself with a walkie-talkie if you plan on going into my work desk.

"So," I stand, pushing my chair back to rise up and grabbing a white board marker.

"Tell me what you know, think you know, and want to know about faeries." I label three poorly drawn, disproportionate and generally terrible looking columns.

"Just shout it. I thought you guys knew this by now."

"They don't like iron?"

"Was that a question?"

"Sort of?" I stifle a giggle, scribbling it down in the 'think you know' column.

"They're…magical creatures…" I frown, turning around and tugging on my top.

"Lauren, this is a mythical creatures _class_. Of course they are."

"Oh…"

"That's alright. How about something else?"

"They have wings."

I wince, but put it under the think you know column.

"They're…vaguely humanoid."

"That's good, Edward." I say, glad to have something to put in the 'know' column.

"Is that it guys?"

…

Um…

…

"How about fairy myths that you know?"

"They can't go into houses without permission?"

"They live underground and are more technologically advanced then us by thousands of years?"

I pause, frowning. That's just…I don't even know what to do with that.

"Yes to the first. And as for the second, that's Artemis Fowl."

"Oh." 'Oh'. 'Duh'. 'Um'. I have no doubt that teenagers and cavemen would have no trouble communicating. Now, if I were a teenager, knowing what I know now, I would probably say something more like 'thwarp.'

"That's okay. Anybody else?"

"They don't like silver!"

"That's…that's werewolves. And sometimes vampires."

It's true, I tell ya! It…it…it was in a TV show…Shut up.

"Were you thinking of iron?"

"…yes?"

"Someone already said that." The boy pouts. So close, so close to getting away with that, bud!

Except for the fact that I'm not mentally ill, or my seventh grade French teacher.

XXX

"Ms. Regence?"

"Yep?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"I don't know, can you?"

Edward sighs, approaching the desk to place slim, pale fingertips on the surface. I stare unwaveringly into almond honey eyes. Don't even think the word 'dazzle', buddy, or you're going DOWN.

A small part of me hates him. Not for anything he did – but because he has his person. And right now it seems like it's being flaunted in front of me.

"Carlisle…he just wanted me to ask you to drop by the hospital today, around six o'clock. He said he had some interesting news for you, though he wouldn't tell me what. Said it would be better if you knew first."

A pang in my stomach. Though I know he can't get that kind of news from a bear carcass, the way Edward (Ed? Eddy? So tempting.) said that calls to mind soldiers knocking on the doors of women about to discover that they're widows. I can only pleadingly hold on to the hope that since the forest hasn't given up, neither has Glenwood. I just want to see him.

Wow, I'm pitiful.

"Th…" I take a long breath, trying to calm my interior. "Thank you. I appreciate it." He nods gravely before heading briskly for the door.

"Mr. Cullen."

"Yes?"

"Get the word out – to the pack as well, if you can – that if possible, the hunting party starts tomorrow."

He nods again before heading out the door.

XXX

You know, I haven't been in a hospital since I was born. I know, I know. You're thinking: right, you survived a deep gash to the stomach from some creepy mutant vampire bear and yet you didn't go to a hospital for it? What the hell, much?

(Actually, yes. Quite a lot. Nunya business.)

Well, that was mostly thanks to Glenwood. Transferred energy from one of his trees replaced the wound with a scar weeks before it should have.

Thinking back on it, it really was stupid not to see before that it wouldn't have worked with Max.

My gut turns.

Too late now, anyway.

No. No it's not. It's not to late. I would know, I would.

Okay, I'm sorry, what did I EVER do to evil white bear things? Because this is ridiculous.

I lick my dry-again lips – a horrid reminder, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet – another reminder, clutching my purse while waiting for Edward's father to come out.

"Coralline." Carlisle smiles at me from the stairs as he descends, dressed in bloody scrubs and a white coat. Bold fashion choices, these vampires have.

Okay, how Yoda-esque did that just sound?

"Dr. Cullen."

"Please, call me Carlisle." Well, I'd rather not. I grin a completely insincere, really-just-bearing-my-teeth grin.

"Carlisle, then." I tend to prefer to keep people at a distance with a last-name basis. But he's making it very, VERY difficult.

"I was hoping to speak with you about the…matter you brought to my attention." He smiles, leading me towards what I assume is his office with one hand hovering over my back, which is proving extremely irritating.

"That's a unique way of putting it."

No, wait, I lied. I was also at the hospital when I had to get a check up. I forgot.

He laughs, right about the time when we get to his office – which proves to be a generic thing with white walls and wooden furniture – and shuts the door.

"Now, I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you."

"Good." I always liked the plain donuts. Get it? Metaphor. Ha.

"The…specimen, it wasn't…biological."

"And by this you mean…?"

"It was synthetic."

"Synthetic like made of plastic and rubber and metal?" I snicker.

"Yes."

I choke on what I was going to say next.

"It…it…"

"I actually believe it was more of a cyborg-type organism. I realize how sci-fi that sounds, but it's almost like a bear with replaced outer parts and fine-tuned machinery inside. The fur, the 'muscle', the eyes – plastic, rubber and glass, respectively."

That…that can't be possible. Things like that don't exist.

"It's actually exceedingly simple. They have a base set of instructions, almost like DNA, actually."

That's what Max found. The 'DNA', it was that fake encoded stuff or whatever. That's why he thought it was from vampire – because it was dead. Oh my…oh my god. That's the only thing running through my mind.

Well, that and EVIL MUTANT ROBOTS! FINALLY!!

But that's my crazy side.

It's ironic, isn't it? That a dryad, a creature so clearly of the earth, of nature, the son of Gaea, his weakness turned out to be something this unnatural. It's almost sickening. Fitting, though. Really, truly fitting.

"I see." I manage to force out, my knuckles white on my bag. Every muscle in my body just went tense.

"They aren't vampires?"

"I suppose, by some interpretation, they could be considered...vampires, in that they seem loosely based off of our construction. Fake...vampires, really."

"I…see."

I don't snap out of my stupefied trance until I get in my freezing cold bed that night.

A/N: Wow, the summary for my story sucks. I was just thinking about that. I mean it really, truly sucks. 'The Cullens take an elective course…' pff. Makes it sound…(well, like what the first two chapters actually are). Maybe I'll try thinking of something else. Aaaaah well. I have a question for every peoples: what genre would you classify this story as? You know, in the thing where you're posting a story and you…pick a genre (that was redundant), well, where would this fall? I'd appreciate some reasoning along with your suggestion. No pressure, if you don't feel like it, leave any kind of comment/critcism/OMG no way/whatever/compliment (well, yeah right to that last one, but whatever.)

Wait, I think I ought to explain something: NOT evil mutant ninja bears. Please relax. It'll get explained pretty soon. But it's not as weird or ridiculous as it sounds (or, well, it is, but not in the same sense).


	23. Have Cat, Will Travel

A/N: Okay, good news and bad news. Good news: I figured out where my giggly mood is coming from. Bad news: it's the Sweeney Todd soundtrack, which is not only creepy but I like to listen to it habitually and I'm not about to stop.

Also: my crazy weird plot outline got milk spilled all over it (hey man, there's a difference between vegetarian and vegan and I'm it), so I had to wait for that to dry.

"What? Where were we when this happened?!" Sam growls, muscles trembling, fingers digging into the palms of his hands. Lower your chi, young wolf! LOWER YOUR CHI!

"Probably eating." Mutters one of the Cullens (I can't see who).

"Shut up, leech."

"Gladly, mutt. I wasn't the one overreacting when we have many better things to do."

"_Better things to_ –"

"Can you two play nice, or do I need to separate you?" I ask curtly, deciding to let my ever-sensible inner teacher take over.

"Sorry, Ms. Regence…"

"Yeah, sorry, Glen's friend…"

I almost burst out laughing, despite the solemnity of the moment. Oh man, I just had a flashback from being an assistant teacher for the second grade. That's just what the kids sounded like. Exactly.

"So, here's the plan. Is everyone listening?" Still in teacher-mode, my hands itching to take my glasses out of my pocket, I survey the crowd of Ridiculous Mythical Creatures That By Every Law Of Nature Shouldn't Actually Exist.

Meh.

Whatchya gonna do.

I bite my lip, searching deep in my gut for whatever the right words could possibly be. These people, these – well, let's face it – hormonal teenagers and mildly bored bloodsuckers are just about my only hope. When did I become the leader of this expedition?

I also have yet to inform them about the oh-so-lovely 'oops, turns out we were wrong, and they're not actually real bears' development. Uh.

"We stick together. Obviously splitting up last time didn't…end well." I wince. It's funny. Loss isn't something foreign to me. Nor is death. I guess it's one of those things you can't – shouldn't – get used to.

"With me so far?"

A disconnected chorus of yeses.

"If you find something, by no means do you pursue the lead without _at the very least_ two vampires and two werewolves. That's only if you're temporarily going somewhere out of sight, and plan on returning immediately. And you inform me first. No exceptions. Whatsoever." Now does everyone have a buddy? This is ridiculous.

Can you blame me for being paranoid?

I've lost arguably two of the most important people in my –

No, no, not lost. They're not lost yet. I just don't know where they are.

I find myself surrounded by a see of grave, blank faces.

"Okay then. Let's go."

XXX

"What…is…that…_thing_."

"What is it, Paul?"

"That THING. What the _fuck_ is it."

"I don't see what he's talking about."

"You can't smell that?"

"There's a pretty distracting leech smell, just in case you haven't _noticed_, Paul."

"Exactly."

"Huh?"

I frown, listening to this possibly very intriguing conversation, elbowing my way to the front of our little convoy.

"Paul? What is it?"

Just about all of the werewolves, or all of the ones that are human (about half turned into wolves, flanking us on either side), are staring in union up, up, up. Something in the tree?

I trace their line of gaze into the white pine that arches towards the grey white sky majestically, and high up among it's branches…

"Oh, that's just Chet."

"…_What_?"

"Chet."

"…Chet?"

"Yeah. He's a vampire cat. I didn't tell you guys? He just sort of walks around outside but technically he lives with me."

"Why, exactly, did you feel the need to live with a _vampire cat_?"

I shrug. "I found him outside the university when I was going to the Seattle Aquarium. I couldn't just go ahead and abandon him. He followed me home."

Paul runs a tongue over his teeth. Oh, young man, don't you even think about eating my vampire cat.

"Wow. You know, I thought it couldn't get worse than just plain vampires. Nope. Nope, lady, you went one better."

OH! HA! This is amazing! It JUST dawned on me, the whole cat-dog thing. This is absolutely fantastic. They must see Chet as the most annoying creature in this world, and possibly other alternate universes.

"Hey, Chetski. Come on down here, bud. Quit teasing the wolves."

Chet stares at me, fluorescent black orbs innocent and unblinking, alien.

"Rrow." He says, giving his tail an experimental whip-crack, the air humming, before heading vertically down. Translation: Well, the simple fact is that I've been sitting on this branch for quite a while now, and though it was mildly amusing at first, I've just now grown tired of this, and just so you know I'm signaling you with my tail that I'm really just doing this of my own accord, and your recent plea had nothing to do with it.

"Yeah, we know, bud." I laugh as he leaps expertly into my arms. You know what, Bella? You can have all the human vampires. I'm not that picky. I'm fine with my vampire cat.

I snuggle him closer to my chest, squeezing hard, safe in the knowledge that I can't hurt him. Like a favorite teddy bear, a loved blanket – I've got Chet.

He's my anchor. When everything's gone to shit, he's the thing that keeps me sane. The thing that listens without judging.

"Hey, budso," I laugh, planting a tiny little kiss right on top of his head. He purrs heavily with pleasure.

"That's disgusting. Don't do that in front of us." Growls one of the wolves. The vampires, however (the previously human ones), are rather pleased, evidently thinking I'm on their side.

At the sound of the werewolf's voice, Chet lazily swivels one enormous eye towards them, an expression that on a human would be considered sly on his feline face.

"Rrrr," He vocally purrs, placing both front paws on my forearm and leaning in their direction.

"Hey, he likes you!" I smile, coming towards them. Most take a rather large step back, with the exception of the boy I've come to recognize as little Seth, who evidently hasn't quite caught on to the whole pack-mentality-hate thing for anything vampire-esque.

"Huh," He says curiously, petting the top of Chet's head with a single finger, rubbing the fur the wrong way – Chet doesn't seem to mind very much.

"He's kinda cute, isn't he?"

"He is, indeed." I chuckle. Now see, that's something we need: someone willing to bridge the gap. They could really use a few more people on both sides like that. Well, anyway.

But just as I feel the tension in the air begin to subside, Chet leaps out of my hands and lands with a _thump! _on the ground.

He hisses, shoulders hackled, looking for all the world like a tiger about to pounce on a snuffling hog.

"Chet?"

A low growl.

"Chet…"

He begins to trot in a single direction, towards evidently nowhere in particular, tail lashing angrily.

He hisses occasionally.

So, naturally, we start to follow him.

A/N: Okay, I realize that was terrible short, but I wasn't so much in a writing mood today. Plus, I'm still trying to decode my now crinkled and withered plot outline. My footnotes were pretty cryptic to begin with – actually, should you happen to be leaving a review, if you want me to show you a little bit of pre-writing planning from it I'd gladly try and translate it onto the computer. I myself think that my thinking process is pretty funny, especially when I insert 'dun-nun-nah!' in the dramatic bits. Well, anyshoes, sorry for not updating yesterday, but…

(has no good excuse)

(actually, has no excuse whatsoever)

(will shut up now)


	24. Unnatural

"Where's he going?"

"I dunno."

"Why are we following him, then?"

"Because he seems to know where he's going."

"But you don't."

"Nope."

"So he could be leading us straight into an ambush of more bears because he works for the cruel evil genius orchestrating the entire plan, and he is counting on our collective and painful deaths at the hands of heartless beasts to advance him in he master's eyes."

"Yup."

"Okay. Just wanted to be clear on that." Jasper nods, falling back to walk next to Alice.

We've been following Chet for upwards of – oh, say, fifteen minutes now? It may not sound like an exceedingly long time, but try following a cat through the forest with no idea where you are for fifteen whole minutes.

Go on. I'll wait.

You see? It's pretty daunting, following him.

XXX

But almost an hour later, I'm sure as hell glad we did.

"Gods, Chet. You're a genius." I whisper.

It's a – a cave. Well not a cave, exactly. More of…a crevasse. A crack like a split in a sidewalk, but vertical, roaring up the side of a cliff where you most certainly would not expect to find it. Like someone stuck a chisel at the top and pounded with a massive hammer.

I find myself unable to move. Unable isn't quite the right word – unwilling to force myself, more. A shiver slithers its way down my spine at the sight. It's very…clichéd. Perfect, huh.

"Who's going in first?" Alice asks, licking her lips more out of habit than the fact that they're actually dry (which I doubt they are).

"I don't think we'll fit as wolves. And we're not as good human."

"We all know that you're easier to kill, dog."

Oh, not cool, man.

"Go take a fire bath."

This is getting old. Come on, guys. What happened to all the children of the world joining hands and singing or some other ridiculous BS? World peace?

Weeeeell, you win some you lose some.

"Hush. Chet will go in first, followed by Emmett – if you don't mind," He nods, a little smile testing out his lips before hiding again, deciding this was not a situation you should strive to relieve tension in. "Then me. After that, just shuffle in randomly. No arguing."

They really do need someone to whip their asses into shape already. I guess Glen had – _has, has _–his hands full already.

"Go on. Shoo." I smile down at Chet, who just twitches his tail and head in, unafraid. What a brave little animal he is.

This is way too James Bond for me. James Bond needs to retire. So do the stupid robot bear things or whatever.

It's damp inside. Not regular damp – but a cold, clinging damp, not from wet but from fear gripping the walls and dripping down on your forehead in fat black drops that seep into your brain, infiltrating rational thought. The kind of cruel chill that dares you to see if that thing that just crawled across your foot was really just a spider. Tiny ruffles of fright undulate in the very air, vibrating through me, moist terror sticking to my throat, ragging my breathing. Every breath makes me feel as if things, real, living _things_ were moving around in my gut.

This place is not normal. I try my best to keep from doubling over, choking. It doesn't seem like anyone in front of me or behind me notices any of this.

I hate it here. I hate everything about this place.

So I take out my glasses. Because I need to hold on to something, _something_, that isn't from crazy evil mad scientist vampire werewolf true love bullshit world.

I perch the thin gold frames on my nose, reveling in that little tingling pressure I feel when they rest just right. Try holding a finger just above the bridge of your nose, a millimeter above the surface. That feeling. I love it.

My braid tickles the base of my spine, and I twist the hem of my shirt nervously.

_Come back. I beg you. Just give me some sign you're alive._

I hear a scream, a horrible, ear burning screech that cannot possibly come from a human, my brain bleeding from the sound.

I hear thunder – see a flash – a flash of white -

His face – they're scared…

Leave – too late – they can't, they're coming – blood – I hear-

Voices, coming, closer – but they –

Gone, everyone's gone, I'm alone – but there's someone –

Something, hiding – behind there – the rock, more of them –

Bears, but bigger – screams –

"NO!"

Cries – names, called, begging – it's here –

Roars, I hear – it's – angry, things are angry, trying – coming –

Black.

XXX

"Cora. Cora, sweetie, Cora, wake up. Oh god, please wake up. You can't be dead. Come on, sweetie. Wake up, mermaid. It's okay now." That voice. I know that voice. I know him.

I love him.

"Max!" I cry, choking on my sob, sitting up far too quickly to throw my arms around his neck, trying to hug him to me. So warm.

I'm sitting on something cold, hard, clean, simple. Smooth. Flat. I try to pull Max to me, but…

He pulls away. Why does he pull away?

"Oh, good, you're alive. For a second I'd thought you were dead, which really would have screwed everything up. Don't want you dying, mermaid." He smiles, ruffling me hair.

I take in the sight of him.

No.

A simple button-down shirt, blue in color, khaki pants, leather belt. Very clean.

"How're you feeling?"

"Where are we?" I ask with trepidation, unsure I want the answer.

This room is eerily white, hospital white, asylum white. The floor is white tile, lacking mars or scratches of any sort.

The walls are like those of a basement – stones, all cobbled together sloppily with cement, washed over with the same alabaster. On one wall is a glass window, though it seems to only look into a room just like mine, but with a simple cot. If it weren't for the basic bed I would have thought that the window was a mirror.

"It's cold." I whisper, rubbing my hands up and down my arms, looking up at him. I guess we're both trapped here.

"Alright, so you're okay?"

"Yeah, pretty much, you?"

"Huh? Why – oh, right. I guess I have some explaining to do." He laughs, and I with him. Maybe this situation isn't quite so bad as I've made it out to be.

He kneels down to my level, tucking a stray hair behind my ear gently before beginning.

"Where to start…"

"The beginning, please." I chuckle.

"Oh, sweetie, you're not going to like me." The pit of my stomach hardens to stone.

"Why?"

He takes a big sigh, like he's about to tell me something inconvenient, moving again or something.

"It's Glen. He's an abomination, mermaid. We have to get rid of him."

I can't move. I can't breathe.

It's so cold.

"He's…"

"Him, and his kind – dryads – "

No.

"They're a leech, a parasite on the ecosystem."

_Max and I are…well, he's Max! I mean, come on!_

"What…what're you…"

"He's a danger. I didn't know quite how much of one until I saw the affect he was having on you – a couple days ago, with the bears? Right before that? You must remember. You know, the 'I choose you' incident."

_God, I've missed him!_

"You, you mean you…"

"I know what happens every time, too. They convince these poor girls of their undying love, then trap them."

_There's so much warmth there, between us, such a comfortable familiarity._

"But even other than that – they aren't natural in any sense. Biologically they're simply heinous, you know? Impossible creatures, and they sap the life out of things. I'm doing the world a favor."

_I can't stay mad at the nerdiest man alive._

I don't say anything, can't say anything. If I open my mouth I'll start hyperventilating. My throat closes up, tears are welling in the corners of my eyes.

_But my god, it feels so…__right__._

This can't be. Not my Max.

"But see, there's a problem with eliminating them, that being that they can't actually die without their actual consent. So I had to wrack my brain – what could provoke that, besides just waiting for them to get bored? And then it hit me! I mean it was so obvious – the girls, the ones I mentioned before. You're one of them, you oughta know. Well, they've convinced themselves that's it's love, not infatuation. So if he loses the person he thinks of as his true love –"

I let out a sob before I choke it in again, staring at the floor. I can't look up at him. Maybe if I don't look up at him, I won't have to know who it is that's talking. That someone is using Max's voice, that's all. I can't look up at him.

"Oh, sweetie! Don't be scared! I'm not actually going to kill you! That would be heartless! But, you see, I have to make him think you're dead." He leans down again, cupping my face in his hands, trying to get me to look at him. I refuse to look at him. No, no, no, no, no.

"But more on that later. Oh, mermaid, you're crying!"

A tear rolls down my cheek. A big, fat, stupid tear.

_And he's obviously harmless._

"Anyways, it obviously didn't work the first time I tried it. I mean I'd just discovered all this about them, and then I found out about the vampires, you know? So I thought: perfect solution! Vampire bears! Needless to say, that didn't work out. But that was years ago. I remember…I first experimented with small mammals. But you'd know plenty about that, huh?"

Chet. Oh, dear, sweet Chet, that's why I found you at the university. Oh, honey.

"Course that came back to almost bite me in the ass when he lead you guys right here – but luckily I had a few more bears around. He must really like you. Oh, you'll love this, Cor!"

Don't call me that. Only Max called me Cor. You can't be Max.

"Anyway, after the vampire bear thing didn't work out, I decided to build off that – how do you get at a nature being? With non-nature. So I took some of the bears, and gave them synthetic skin from Kevlar and metal. That worked out great, and eventually I was replacing everything but the basic neurological systems with improved bits. So clearly that worked out nice, huh?"

_He's just an awkward, tall, skinny nerd with surprisingly nice hair._

"He's…_unnatural_?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that. I have to show you some of the genetic tests I ran –"

"_He's_ unnatural?" I tremble, bracing my arms on the ground and rising to stare him in the eyes.

"Of all things, Max. Of all things. A _wood nymph_ is unnatural. What about nuclear warheads? Hydrogen bombs? Cars that run on the liquefied bodies of dead animals? That's _unnatural_, you bastard. And you say that Glenwood is unnatural? I can give you a mile-long list of unnatural things and he wouldn't come anywhere near it. Plastic bags, oil tankards, September eleventh, genocide. That's _unnatural_. Those bears, you lousy ass. Those are the most unnatural things ever to walk this earth. And you are calling a creature that has only ever cared for a forest – something we need far more of – you're calling it…unnatural. You bastard. That's what you are. Rot in hell." My voice decrescendos until it's venomously soft, and I grip him by the arms, hissing in his face.

"Oh, mermaid. I thought this'd happen. He's got you in a daze of sorts. Tricked you, hypnotized you to think this way. They can do that. They aren't good creatures, Cora."

_He's such a good guy._

Oh, god, oh god. I refuse to cry in front of this monster. I won't do it. Cry over him.

"Where is he."

"Glen? Well, I had to put him where he could see you."

"This won't work. It won't. I swear."

"It worked last time."

Oh my god. Shock quakes my body.

"Last time."

"Yes. Down in the tropics, actually. I found a female, she'd sucked a helpless human male into her trap. She agreed to kill herself in order to save her 'mate'."

"She would kill herself for someone you say means nothing to her."

He tut-tuts. "You wouldn't get it." He pauses, sucking on his lower lip. "Elsa, I think her name was."

Monster. The word does not apply to vampires, or werewolves, or nyads or dryads or maenads or anything but him. They don't have a choice. But he's a monster, through and through.

Hate.

"Anyways, we'll start tomorrow morning. Listen, sweetie," I fall back on the ground, staring at the floor numbly. Too much, all at once. Too much.

Oh, Lord, what happened to the others?

"You might hate me now. But you'll thank me eventually."

I barely register a hidden door slide shut, a copious amount of locks click shut.

_Not every one of us scientists is an evil genius, you know__._

I hate him. He needs to die.

A/N: Why is Max the villain, you ask? Because, quite simply, I have a fondness for normal villains. So I had to make I villain I wouldn't end up having a crush on. Yes, I realize how creepy that sounds, believe me. But there's nothing shmexier than a heartless fiend. The only crush I have ever had (including the real world, which is horribly depressing) was/is on Stan the pretending-to-be-a-nerd vampire from Living Dead in Dallas. He was the only good part of a book which I cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone ever. And he was a background character, at best. Like a mini-antagonist. But I wuv him.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure (though I don't feel like checking) that one or two people actually predicted this when Max showed up like fifteen chapters ago. So those of you who did predict it, SHUT YOUR TRAPS.


	25. Actually, It's A Flower

"Now you're going to say something opaque and oracular about the bond between us, aren't you?" – Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

* * *

_I hate him. He needs to die._

Of course, as soon as I thought that, I burst out laughing. I'm sorry but how can you NOT?

I mean come on. Backtrack, fellas. We've got: evil genius/scientist, secret underground lair, minions, plots of destruction, and quite possibly mental instability.

I can't help but laugh – it's a lifeline. It quickly morphs into a desperate thing, devoid of actual humor, trying in vain to fill the vast emptiness around me.

"Only you could find humor in this."

I freeze. The voice seems to come from nowhere.

"Where are you?"

"Don't worry." He laughs. "I'll come get you."

I'll come get you. Oh, please hurry. I've needed to see you for so long. Speed of light would be good.

There's no flourish, no puff or plume of smoke or ominous wind, he's just not there and then he is. No popping sounds or anything. It wasn't like he appeared out of nowhere, either – it's just he was all-of-a-sudden there, kneeling in a corner and smiling at me.

"How bout we go back to my place? More spacious." He winks.

"How are you so calm about this?"

Glen pauses, smiles at me, eyes glittering. He's too far away. I don't like you so far away.

As if able to read my thoughts (I don't know, maybe he can), he rises to come sit next to me.

"We're in no danger. We may not be able to get out, but if he's not going to kill you then we needn't worry in the least."

"But…he's going to…"

"Kill me? Hardly. I do know that it's all a trick, after all."

"But neither of us will ever get out."

He snorts. "Or, perhaps I've learned a few tricks of my own over the years."

A wave of blue emotion washes over my body. Fatigue, hopelessness, helplessness, giving up, being taken care of. That's what my physical self wants.

"Things weren't supposed to happen like this." I whisper, leaning my head on his shoulder.

Gently, taking advantage of my weak state, he pulls me into his lap – something I never normally do. He tightens his arms around my body.

"No, Cora. It wasn't. But you have to learn to deal with what you have. And right now, this very moment, it is the last night we may be able to be close for a long while." He nuzzles my cheek. I don't note whether or not he is, at the moment, more human or tree. I just know that he feels nice, and right, underneath me now.

I want to ask why. I think about saying something clever or witty. About saying something ridiculously clichéd and hopelessly romantic. I don't know.

But the moment for saying something passes, and a long and comfortable silence stretches between us. That's one of the (many) things I love about him, I guess – though I've never thought about it in those terms before. That he knows when I want to joke around and when I want to not say anything.

So he doesn't say anything when I start to cry, no words of comfort or questions why. Maybe you learn the value of silence as a tree. I sob quietly and he just tightens around me and pulls my head to his chest like I'm a hopeless wallflower waiting to be rescued by some dashing prince.

"He was…" I take a heaving breath. "We were introduced. And…he was so nice. And…and…" I blubber, trying so hard, _so hard_, not to think about why I loved him. It wasn't love, not really. I told myself it was because I wanted to believe it. Love isn't telling someone that you love them.

It's holding someone when they cry over the bastard that's trying to kill you both.

"I'm sorry," I mutter into his collarbone, trembling with the aftershocks of my breakdown. It's not weak to cry into someone's shoulder. It's not.

It's very hard to convince myself of this.

"I know you are. Emotions are difficult things to control."

He rocks me back and forth gently, in an effort to get me to feel better. I don't know how, but it seems like all of a sudden we're in the other room – the one I saw through the window with the cot. The walls in here are more of a pale, earthly yellow, much more comforting than asylum white.

"I thought you might like it better in here. I'd offer to switch, but I doubt he's thick enough not to notice. Don't want to give away our advantage." He chuckles softly, playing his fingers over my hair.

All cried out now, my eyes sting. Lack of moisture, almost. Have you ever stayed up extremely late, and felt your eyeballs grow dry, felt the need to close your eyes just to stop it? That's my feeling now.

I guess I haven't really been able to sleep at all for the last few days.

I close my eyes.

"You are tired?"

I nod without lifting my eyelids. "I haven't really…slept since you…"

He stops my words, finding my mouth with his own softly.

"You should sleep." He whispers, his warm breath bringing me halfway there.

"But-" he cuts me off, lifting me up and carrying me over to the barebones bed. Well, it's not exactly ideal, but it's far better than nothing.

He lays me down on it, getting on right behind me, pulling me to his chest.

"Sleep, Coralline." He presses a kiss to my ear, my temple, my forehead.

"Be still and know that I love you."

XXX

I didn't want to sleep. I mean if I fell asleep I might wake up and he'd be gone and that would suck massively.

It was a dreamless, heavy, green sleep during which I was acutely aware that he never left my side. It feels so much more desperate, now. Like I'm trying to absorb as much of him as I still can.

But nevertheless I wake up just two hours later, somehow closer to him.

"Sh, sh, Cora. I'm still here." He chuckles. "You can stop burrowing into me."

"Sorry." I whisper, though I'm not really. I've turned around in his grasp, tucked my head under his, all while I was asleep.

He sighs, or at least I feel him sigh by the movement of his chest, running his fingers through my hair. Little pricks and tingles on my scalp lull me into a false happiness.

"He's still gone." I whisper.

"He is."

I place a little kiss on his jaw. "He won't be gone when I wake up again, will he?"

"No, oddling. I doubt it." He sighs.

With a groan, I pull myself from his grasp, my bare feet slapping the tiled floor as I pace the room. It's very quiet here. Very…cut off. I hate it. I like being surrounded but still…open, if that makes any sense at all. Like being in a forest.

Folding my hands behind my back like a stern general, I reach the end of the wall and spin on my heel slowly, thoughtfully, leaning back against it to stare at him.

Perched carefully on the cot, one knee folded up supporting his chin, the other leg folded neatly under that one, flat. Hands laced in front of his shin. He's giving me this amused, twinkling little expression, as if my antics entertain him.

"We have to figure something out. Some way of…of…" I sigh.

"You realize what we must do, Cora. What it is our obligation to do."

I nod, biting my lower lip and sucking on it thoughtfully. I know what we have to do.

We have to kill him.

"How?"

He shakes his head. "That is what I am unsure of. I would prefer to find a way out of this place first, assure myself that you are safe. You are no less human than he is." I rub the bridge of my nose, taking my glasses – which have miraculously survived – out of my pack pocket and slipping them on.

I look back up at him, and he's grinning.

"What?"

"Nothing…"

"What?" I whine.

"You look…different from when I first met you, when you wear glasses. It is strange."

I chuckle. "You remember that?"

"I remember."

I remember too. How cold and distant and unwilling he was to get within three feet of me. And the first time I saw him, too, at the hospital.

XXX

_"HELP!" I screeched, running at a speed that'd impress and Olympic sprinter down to the beach. _

_"Someone! He's drowning!" I saw a body, a vaguely human-shaped body, floating like driftwood in the waves._

_I pulled him, by the arm, up onto the damp sand. It seemed as though all of the blood had drained from his face, the life had seeped out of him in equilibrium with the ocean. _

_Desperately, I grabbed my sweatshirt – I don't know what strange instinct told me to dry him off instead of attempt CPR, but I did anyway – and started to towel him off._

_He seemed vaguely familiar, not in the sense of an intimate friend from years ago but in the sense of someone you'd seen just last week in a parking garage, whose name you didn't know but who you smiled and waved at anyway just to be friendly._

_He wore only black pants of an unknown cloth, and his bare chest was annoyingly muscular._

_"Wake up," I pleaded, drying him off. I didn't know what I would do with myself if this stranger had died on my hands._

_"Wake up."_

_His eyes flew open just then, not nearly long enough for dramatic pressure to build, and stared at me strangely. Almost…in shock._

_"Oh, gosh! Are you alright? Do you need me to call an ambulance?"_

_"No."_

_That was all that he said to me before disappearing into the forest._

XXX

"You made a funny face at me and ran away." I accuse, poking my tongue out at him.

"I recognized you. But I did not recognize the feeling I had when I recognized you. At the moment, my trained instinct convinced me that unwarranted feelings were best avoided."

I laugh a little bit. "You really are kind of pitiful."

"Resistant to change, please." He says, faux-huffily.

I shake my head and start pacing again. Step, step, step, cot/Glen, wall, step, cot/Glen, step, step, step, wall, step, step, step. It's not a large room.

The next time I pass by the cot, however, Glen grabs my arm and pulls me down to sit next to him. A bit forcefully, though, my sore body protesting.

I wince, soliciting an immediate apologetic reaction from him.

"I – I did not mean to –"

"Relax, Glen. I know. It must be like handling glass." He nods sadly, never breaking eye contact.

A sly smile settles itself on his lips.

"This doesn't feel like glass. It feels warm. And smooth." I can't contain a tiny gasp as every muscle in my abdomen tenses, his hand roaming its way across my stomach.

"Uh,"

"That's what I thought." He laughs, pulling his hand away and leaning in closer.

"That tickled."

"I know. You're very ticklish."

"Please don't remind me." I giggle a little bit.

"May we please plot here instead of having you pace like a restless tiger?"

I pout. "Fine."

He closes his eyes, and for once I do note that he is bark-covered and peaceful, resting his forehead against my shoulder.

We say nothing for a little while.

I see him play with his fingers, tapping his thumb against each one. I watch something grow there, on his palm. Something not quite possible, but there nevertheless.

He opens his hand, and I see what he was – making, I suppose? It's beautiful. A flower, like a tiny little snapdragon flower, pale yellow in color. Its stem is contorted and twisted, wrapped around itself in a circle.

"Here," he says quietly, slipping it onto my forefinger. "I hope you don't mind. I know you dislike jewelry."

"What's it for?" I breath, staring at it. I was wrong – it's not like a snapdragon, it is one. A tiny one, but a living one, somehow still growing, right there on my finger.

"It is a promise." He tells me simply.

"Of…?"

"That you will wait for me. No matter what he will make you think. That you will wait for me if something happens because I will not die and neither will you, and I know that."

"Of course." I say, surprised that he'd think he needed me to say it out loud.

"You won't have to wait long, of course. But should the need arise, I may need to be gone for a few days."

"Mmhm." I nod.

He grins uncontrollably, like I just promised him the world.

"I suppose it is a promise of something else as well."

"And that would be?"

He closes the distance between us, pulling my face to his as I do likewise, reveling in the feel of his lips on mine.

"Of that." He whispers. "Now, we need to figure a few things out."

XXX

So when morning comes I'm not exactly skipping cheerful, but I'm less than morose. I've got my glasses and my braid and my snapdragon ring and a hopeful promise from the man – creature – on the other side of the glass window. And a plan. Sort of.

It barely waivers when Max opens the door and comes in, smiling at me sheepishly, jangling keys in his pocket.

"Hey, mermaid."

"Fuck off." I say brightly.

"Oh, sweetie. He's still got you tricked. You'll realize I'm right eventually." He sighs, making as if the move closer.

"I refer you to my previous statement." I tell him coldly, scooting further into the corner.

He shrugs. "Just thought you might want to know. Curious mind of a scientist, you know."

"Eat socks."

He frowns. It still hurts a little bit, inside me, right along my scar. It's a newly reopened wound in some senses. "Anyways. Seems like dryads have a form of…protection that automatically applies to their victims. Makes them immune to some things – such as a paralytic venom that might convince him you'd died." He sighs.

Oh, so I'm a 'victim' now? I want to ask him this, but I've decided I won't dignify him with recognition of his evil.

"Of course, you're far from his level of immortal. So I thought: what's a supernatural way around a supernatural shield?"

"You know, I bet you and Hitler would have a lot to talk about."

He continues rambling, ignoring me. "Then of course, it hit me! I doubt this'll kill you, but it's damn close. I hope it doesn't hurt though. Don't want you scarred, Cor. Love you. Bye."

Did he actually just say that? Lousy bastard.

As he's leaving, I hear clanks and forceful pushing. And that's when the person gets forced into my cell.

My cell with the asylum white walls.

The last person I could have expected to see in this room. With pale yellow hair, sharp features and rapidly darkening eyes.

"Jasper?"

A/N: HAHA! Hahaaha. Cliffhanger. See how you deal with that mess.

-shies away embarrassed because no one actually cares-

Sorries. I had a little too much free time today. Also, apologies for not updating yesterday, but I was – oh, hell, who am I kidding, no one cares about my personal life. _I_ don't care about my personal life. Erhem. Going back to my corner now. (does suspicious things in a corner)

Leave a review if you pity me!


	26. Respect Your Elders

I watch him for minutes, neither of us moving a millimeter. When a vampire is still, it is very different from when a human is still – at least people still move a little, breathing and blinking. He's stone still, could be dead.

I'm not sure what to feel. Anger – no, anger does not apply. Who to be angry at? Max. But that won't do any good, because he's not about to come back.

Fear? Not really. I don't know why, but I feel utterly calm at the moment. Hey, if I die, I'm dead, and there's nothing to be done about it, you know?

"Don't," I warn Jasper.

"I'm sorry." He mutters, letting the calm seep back out of the room.

Okay, still not really feeling scared. Uh.

"Jasper, I told you not to do that."

"I am not doing anything." He says coldly, taking a step back.

I groan. "Look, Mr. Cullen. Alienating me won't make it easier for you to not eat me. If you see me as a person, a rational creature, that might work."

He regards me for a second, before nodding and coming forward awkwardly to sit next to me.

"So, what exactly is he trying to accomplish by sticking you with me?" I ask, folding and unfolding the arms of my glasses.

"I'm assuming he's waiting for me to get…hungry enough to cause you harm." He's still speaking like it's 1897. Come on, man. You're not this lame.

"Well, why you, then? Because I know you the least well?"

He shakes his head morosely. Uh oh.

"Because he thinks – knows – that I'm weak."

…Oh.

"…Oh."

That's not very comforting. I pause to slip my glasses back on, though my surroundings become only fractionally sharper.

"What about everyone else?"

"I don't know. I was in a room like this, four feet of concrete and steel on every side, then they led me down a hallway to here. I have reason to believe he won't do them harm, but he wants to make sure they won't hinder him."

He runs his fingers through his hair, leaving messy tracks, finally folding his arms around his knees and staring at the floor.

"He's watching us, isn't he?"

"Max?" I ask.

"No. The other one. Yours."

I frown, look up.

Glen has braced his elbows against the sill of the window, watching us intently. I know we're both trapped equally. So why do I feel like he's watching me like a human looking into a chimp's exhibit?

He looks so concerned, expressions and motions of worry dancing and flickering everywhere on his body.

I know. We didn't plan on this. It's void, now, our plan. Guess we'll have to wing it.

"He is, isn't he. Does it bother you?"

"No."

Awkward silence. I twist around the tip of my braid, brushing it against my fingers, wondering who'll give in first.

"Guess this is getting less dramatic by the second, huh?"

"Yep."

"…Wanna play the 'at least' game?"

He shrugs. "Shouldn't we figure out what we're going to do?"

I pause. "Do you have to kill someone when you feed from them?"

"It's often difficult to stop."

"But could you?"

"Well, then you'd become a vampire."

I glare at him. "Okay, never said you going to bite me, buddy."

"What would you suggest, then?" He seems pretty calm about all this.

"That's nitpicking. If we did find a way to cut myself, could you just take a little of my blood instead of killing me?"

"It wouldn't satiate me." He frowns.

"Okay, would it keep you from killing me in a starved haze?" I ask, just a tinge of bitter sarcasm in my voice.

He chuckles. "I guess."

"Well, then. How do you propose we get out of here alive?"

"You seem very calm about this."

"Uh huh." This isn't really a good time to have a Phantom Of The Opera song stuck in my head. Whatever.

"This is your first life-or-death experience, right?"

"Not really, no. First one where I've been locked in a room with a _vampire_, though."

"Funny. Me too."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Well, no offense, but that doesn't tell me a lot about you."

"True. It's kind of like saying whether or not you've ever been to a building with red paint on the bathroom stalls is a defining characteristic."

I snort, licking my dry lips.

We sit in silence for a bit, me leaning my head at an angle against the wall and staring at the stones, him…I don't know, doing a vampire thing.

"He has a lot of defenses. Technical and – otherwise." Jasper informs me, still not making eye contact. I wonder if he's trying to desensitize himself to the whole situation.

I can still taste cranberry juice in my mouth, from a glass I had – only a day ago? Well, well. Funny how you notice things like that.

"This is the most ridiculous and drawn out climax I've ever taken part in." I grumble finally, pulling the bottom scrunchy off of my braid and undoing it.

"We have to get him in here. Trap him somehow."

"Why Jasper. How very twenty-first century Fox spy movie of you."

He snorts and shakes his head. "If he believes that you're truly…in jeopardy…"

"He'll wait for Glen to kill himself."

"Oh." Jasper, I assume, had been counting on Max caring enough about me dying. Nope, sorry, he's just a jackass idiot moron face butt head.

"He cares about you, though. I could tell. He doesn't want you hurt."

"That's why he's trying to kill my loved ones and locked me in a room with a super predator? Sorry."

"No offense taken. And I think he does truly believe this is what's best for you."

"Jasper, that's because he's a complete idiot."

"Don't be so harsh." He hisses.

"Sorry, I should be running up to him and raining him with kisses for killing my…Glenwood." My what? I don't know. Figure it out later.

"No. Just…calm down, please. You're making this difficult for me."

Oh, well, I feel like an idiot now. Woops. Emotion thing.

"That must be quite a significant hindrance in casual situations."

"You have no idea." He grumbles.

I'm still wracking my brain for some way to get Max down here.

"If we did get him down here – could you take on him by yourself? In your state?"

"Yes."

His answer is quick and definite, not even a moment's pause. I am so sick of this supernatural ego thing.

'We're so much stronger than you pathetic humans, and smarter and faster and better and more superior and prettier, you silly little idiots.' Blah, blah, blah. You were human once too, you know. So sick of that.

When – if – I get out of here (God willing), I plan on isolating myself from it for as long as possible. Lock myself in a room with a big cup of tea and an unfathomably long book, in some bourgeoisie motel room, maybe with Glenwood and definitely with a working shower, and I won't come back out for days. Days, I tell you.

"What if he brings – er – backup?"

"Depends on how much and what kind. It'd have to be a disturbance he would deem…minor."

"Uh huh." I groan, and he shoots me a look, glancing from me to the dryad in the window.

"You didn't…_sleep_ much last night, did you?"

"Young man, don't be so rudely blunt to your elders." I snap. Okay, in foresight, that was kind of a dumb thing to say to someone who is undoubtedly decades older than I am, but it's hard to turn off Teacher once it's turned on.

"Yes'm." He mutters, folding further into a little ball.

That was weird.

Uh.

_Scritch._

"Sorry. I guess it was instinctive. I didn't mean to insinuate that you're – you know, inferior to me."

"That's all right. My reaction was a bit instinctual as well."

_Scritch scratch._

I chuckle. Ready? Now is when a solution magically presents itself, since I don't plan on fainting anytime soon.

_Scraaatch. Scritch scratch. Creeeak._

No one is saying anything about that noise, however, and I'm wondering if I'm imagining it…

_SCROITCH._

No way I was the only one to hear _that_. Right?

"What is that? Do you know?" He asks me, watching his fist intently as it curls and uncurls.

"No."

_SCRA-EEACH!_

"It's not…uh…"

"Rrow."

A/N: Random, much? I apologize for the lack of plot in this chapter, but the fact is that the nearer I get to the end the more I want to procrastinate. ANYWAYS. Two things (either/both can be ignored if you want, I just would like to know):

Number one is kind of fun: Should Max live or die, and if he does die, how should it happen? Of course, I may or may not listen to your suggestion and go the other way, but input would be nice because it works rather well either way.

Number two is pretty boring: If I were to do a sequel-ish-type-thing, would anyone be interested, or have these characters just about lived out their intrigue?

Again, it's fine if you want to ignore either request and just want to post and be like 'this is completely uncharacteristic of Jasper even if he is trying to control himself you idiot'. Actually, if you are thinking that, I'd be glad to explain why he acted the way he did in this chapter, and if even then you still think it was a stupid chapter, good to know. -braces self-


	27. Elephants On Parade

Disclaimer: I believe I may write a song. With lyrics. The "I Don't Own It" song.

Give me an L!

"**L**!"

Gimme an A!

"**A**!"

Gimme a C!

"**C**!"

Gimme a K!

"**K**!"

Gimme an 'of ownership of Twilight!'

"(confused and disoriented mumbles)…uhm...Twilight…"

* * *

Jasper frowns. "Did you hear that?"

"Hard not to."

"That was your cat, right?"

I stare at him. "No, it was that fat homeless tabby that was gnawing on mouse bones in the garbage on the way here."

Wisely, he ignores me (probably because he can tell I'm not actually that pissed) and watches the source of the noise intently.

"Come on, come on, come on…"

"RROW!"

Affronted, Jasper takes a crouched-step back and looks at me.

"He doesn't want encouragement. He doesn't like it."

"That's…very opinionated of him. Wait, can you understand him?"

"Had him since I was in college. You learn to interpret cat…things."

"Cat things?"

"Shut up. It's the climax, don't question my verbiage."

This earns an amused smile and something third-cousin-twice-removed to a laugh from his throat.

There are a few more scratches, determined in nature and repetitive in their force. He's…digging his way in? Jiggling the lock? Hm.

"I feel kind of useless not doing anything and waiting to be rescued." Jasper tells me, after the two of us have crouched expectantly on the floor for upwards of seven minutes. Oh dear. Oh my goodness gracious. This is going to take days, isn't it?

-three days later-

…

-naw, I'm kidding, two and a half hours later-

"Has he made any progress?"

"Uh…I can't tell." He shrugs, sitting back down on his butt. A small, guttural growl is trapped in his throat.

"Listen, seriously, if you're that hungry…"

"Absolutely not."

I snort, something huffy and snobby along the lines of 'okay, _jeese_.' going through my head. Touchy, touchy. Humph.

"The scratches are getting louder, right?"

"I guess. Wait –" he cocks his head. "Yep. Definitely louder than before. What's he digging through?"

"You said concrete and steel."

"That was a guess. It's pretty much impermeable, though."

"Which sucks."

"Which sucks."

THUMP.

Whoa. Now that was definitely louder than before. Low whistle.

THUMP. THUMP. WHACK.

"Is he…head…butting the-"

"Yep." I say, popping the _p_ and making a semi-ashamed face.

"I take it back. Your cat is actually pretty cool." I resist the urge to tell him, 'I know'.

The plaster splinters, a spider web of cracks spreading from the epicenter of the pressure. Physics, folks. Learn it. Love it. (Fat chance.)

Dust from the crack billows out into the room, particles flying towards the walls and rapidly becoming asthma-inducing projectiles, describing whirls and curlicues in the air.

Inhaling it involuntarily is rather a lot like smelling a dirty, dry lump of clay, cracked from lack of moisture.

I cough once, twice, three times.

Finally, the wall bends and folds in weakness, exploding inwards and taking with it a looming, dark shape of impossible proportions. The thing, unable to stop its forward momentum, slams like a forcefully thrown soccer ball into the wall with the window, thoroughly distressing Glenwood who takes a good few steps back.

A puddle of black fur lays on the floor, limbs spreading out like branches.

Black?

"Grrowf." It says. It's not a wolf, I can tell. It's…sleeker, shinier, more…

More _something_.

"It's a dog." Jasper says, evidently as confused as I am.

"Mmm," groans the dog, rising to its immense height with obvious effort. Good god. It's nearly…seven, eight feet tall at the shoulder, with wiry black furs coating its body, an eerily red sheen to its cover.

It's wearing a collar, furthering my perplexion.

"Oh, god." I whisper. It – the collar, that is, not the dog – is made of worn brown leather, and instead of the usual ring of tags has a simple, engraved gold plate, bearing in Times font:

BOLT.

"Bolt?"

He whines, gives me a very dog like look, despite all-black pupils and a Great Dane-Doberman cross of a face. How…strange.

"That's not a-" Starts Jasper.

Reading his thoughts, I join him in the denial. "No way, it's absolutely not a-"

"Nah, it can't be, those don't exist."

"And even if they did, there's no way a hellhound would-"

"Rowf." Bolt tells me, giving me a very opinionated glare that tells me that he very well can be and _is_ a hellhound, and he'll thank me not to assume that all they do is kill people.

"Wow." Is all I can manage to stutter dumbly, running a hand through my hair.

"So I guess we're basically homefree then, huh?"

He snorts. Of course, he says. Of course you are. No duh. Idiots.

XXX

A/N: Okay, sorry, sorry. I had to go there. I just…I just had to, okay? It's kind of an inside joke.

Alright, pretend the Bolt stuff never happened, let's just start where we left off:

XXX

I cough once, twice, three times.

Finally, the wall bends and folds in weakness, exploding inwards and taking with it a small furry body of frightening cold muscle, which promptly and in a very undignified matter rolls into a ball, thwacks into the wall, and lands in a little fuzzy heap on the floor.

"Hey there, funny!"

"Rrrrrrr." Translation: shut up. Don't patronize me, stupid human.

Haha.

"Wow. That was…" Jasper coughs. "Loud."

"Yeah. Loud." I say.

Chet, entirely pissed off that people aren't rushing over to him and making a fuss, gets up gracefully and flicks his tail, before sitting down to give me a green-eyed-

Green eyed?

Oh, jeez, he got to the horseshoe crabs.

Anyways.

"Okay, Chet. Great plan. You got in here. Now please inform me how one cat – no offense – is going to get five vampires, a human and a wood nymph out of here."

He gives me a sly, cat-eyed sideways glance.

As if to say:

Oh, you'll see. Just you wait a minute.

XXX

"It worked!" Jasper cries, much to my bewilderment.

"Sorry, what?"

"You didn't hear that, did you?"

"Hear what?"

"Then that's a no." He tells me, standing up.

"I definitely heard him say something. Along the lines of 'damnit! How'd that stupid cat get down there!' and then he said something about 'being right back'. So he's probably coming down here…"

"Alone."

He grins. "Exactly."

I wince. "Don't…don't…" I take a long breath.

"Drain him? You can say it."

I can't, really, but thanks for the offer.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on punishing him myself. That's a job for the authorities." Great, you mean Bella's dad arresting her teacher's known boyfriend for attempted murder? That'll turn out just peachy.

"Oh, it won't be that bad, he'll get it."

"Wait, I thought Edward was the one that read minds?"

"I felt your frustration and made an inference."

Oh, well that's okay then.

I sit back down on my ass, wrapping my arms around my knees, rocking back and forth.

Don't cry.

Don't cry.

I look to my right, see Glenwood pacing restlessly in his room, glancing up towards me every few seconds. Hm.

XXX

_Gosh, I always hated school dances. I don't know why my mom even made me come. Okay, rephrase: my mom didn't make me come, but I said I'd go with that guy that asked me out – Dan or something? And she said that if I told him I would, I was obligated to. So why on earth did I agree?_

_I snort, shaking my head and banging it against the palm of my hand. _

_I look like complete shit, probably. Don't get me wrong, the dress is beautiful. A bell bottom – does that term apply to dresses? Well, it does now – it flares just past my knees, trailing out a little in the back. Further up it's loose, draping over all the right places, and wrist-length sleeves make it look like something out of a fairy tale._

_I'm hiding, temporarily, in the shelter that is the field just outside, hoping that Dan doesn't find me. He went to the bathroom, and I ran away. It's silly, isn't it? That I'm trying especially hard to be closer to the forest at every available moment, even though that guy – the rude one that ran away after I saved his frickin' life – was found in the ocean. Why should I look for him in the forest? Especially since he probably did go to the hospital, was picked up by his family and is now back in Seattle or something. I just want to pretend._

_"Coralline! There you are! Watchya doin' out here, sweetpea?"_

_I smile weakly. "I don't know. I guess I got lost. I'm still kind of new." I tell Dan, who is really quite a handsome boy if you go for that sort of thing, as he hurries across the grass towards me, smiling._

_"That's alright. Come on, let's get you back inside before you freeze to death."_

_"It's nearly forty five degrees out here, I doubt I'll freeze." I snort._

_He laughs, a booming sound. "I keep forgetting. You Canadians are tough!"_

_"Some of us are." I want to tell him not to stereotype, but it wouldn't do any good. Besides, that would be needlessly judgmental._

_"Hey! I love this song! Wanna dance?"_

_I refuse to believe that he loves this slow, romantic-type music, but clearly he just wants out on the dance floor. Probably to dance with that girl he's been eyeing all night. At least, I hope he's eyeing her, because I don't particularly feel like being eyed._

_"Sure." I say, halfheartedly draping my arms around his neck as he places his hands on my hips, dragging me directly into the seeming thousands – nay, millions! – of swaying couples, spinning in dizzy circles together._

_Sleepy, I watch them all move as one like a mid-twentieth century musical number, spinning counterclockwise. All the boys in tuxedoes, all the girls in pale dresses. They seem content, with their people, even if they weren't built for each other. Why am I not? _

_In fact, they all seem hauntingly alike. Not in appearance, but the fact that no teenage dance is this organized. They seem to all move at once, mindlessly, not quite knowing their own actions, even Dan. Not me?_

_Silently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, Dan slides his hands away from my hips and turns around to a new dance partner, as does everyone else. Another boy slips in._

_He places, shyly, one hand on my waist, the other grasping my own. _

_"I hope you don't mind. But you didn't quite look like you were enjoying yourself." _

_A tiny gasp escapes my mouth. Him. Even more beautiful conscious, all sharp features and gentle eyes, golden brown hair falling gracefully around his head._

_"I just felt that my response to your deed the other day was…improper. And I apologize for my dress, but I couldn't quite find anything appropriate." He smiles and my heart skips a beat._

_He is dressed a bit…outlandishly, but it seems to fit my own garb perfectly. A brown vest, leather or suede, with an old-fashioned collar, it is buttoned over a loose white shirt with slightly billowed sleeves. The only words that could come to mind might be stable boy, but that doesn't quite do it justice. I feel like it's early seventeenth century England._

_And with a start, I realize that's just about where we are. Or at least, it feels like that. Gone are the garish booty-bumps and hormonal teenage make-out sessions in the corner, instead everyone in the background melting together to form sort of a frame around us, create scenery. _

_"Do you mind terribly?" He asks, reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of my face._

_In shock, I shake my head, shivering openly as his fingertips brush my skin._

_I don't know what's playing in the background, but it sounds like baroque music. Greensleeves? Is that even baroque?_

_"Oh," I whimper as his hand slides back down to grasp my waist. My arm tightens around his shoulder._

_"Do me a favor, Coralline?" Not bothering to wonder how he knows my name, or even what the favor is, I nod dumbly, our face an unbearable few inches apart._

_He closes the distance just slightly, our noses almost touching. Foreign tingles strike me, right down to my very toes._

_"Please tell Dan to find a new permanent dance partner."_

_"Why?" I squeak._

_"Because, I'm afraid his current one," he smiles slyly, brushing our noses together and causing me to temporarily stop breathing, "is quite taken."_

XXX

Mm, I remember sexy Glen. That was…interesting, especially since my then-teenage mind magnified it.

Wow, looking back on that, how did I ever think that Glen 'didn't think that way'? Oh well.

Even now, looking at him and making eye contact, I can't help but shiver. This is the effect he has on me, even through glass.

I guess that's one more reason to get through this alive…

Oh, jeez, tell me I didn't just think that. You live in a dirty place, Coralline Regence. A very dirty place.

"Frickin cats…previous experiments…always…jealousy…stupid bonding…" I hear only the most amusing snippets of his self-rant as he makes his way down here, a curious metallic sound as he fumbles with the keys.

Jasper looks at me, crouches on the ground, holds a finger to his lips.

_Don't give it away._

I nod. Got it.

Max's footsteps grow louder, echoing more and more effectively, until they cease, just outside our room.

"_What the_-" is all he manages to shout.

Before Jasper erupts from his couch, joined by my vampire cat, the both of them leaping for the monster with identical vicious, hungry snarls.

Remember your promise, boys.

A/N: There you go. The first conversation that Glen and Cora ever actually had, in which she said a sum total of two words.

Oh my, has Max died? Or no? Let us see! I know! Do YOU?!

Can I do this real quick?

No more rhymes now, I mean it!

Anybody wanna peanut?

Ha.


	28. Alternate Universes

Disclaimer: Look, you just insist on bringing up painful topics about things I don't own, don't you? God, you're a horrible person. You're going to make me cry. Do you see me crying? Sob sob, me no own Twilight.

Sometimes there is a person  
That can turn your world around  
They'd look good with any haircut and they'll look good in the ground

- I Used To Be A Singer, Maritime (look them up or DIE)

"Don't hurt him." I don't sound very adamant about it. A weak little quiver of a voice, even I don't believe myself.

Especially when my subconscious is screaming:

Kill him. Make him pay for what he's done.

For Elsa. For the people his creations have maimed and killed. For the creatures themselves. They're still rational animals, no matter what he's done.

Hurt him. Just don't make me watch.

A snarl, a hiss, a flurry of motion and all of a sudden he's pinned to the ground, Jasper crouched on top of him.

Just looking at his eyes now – pitch black, alien – it's hard to imagine this creature ever passing for human.

But that's the point, then, isn't it?

Chet, very pleased with himself, decides to get one in while the man's down, stalking right up to his face.

"Uhngk!" comes the pained nasal sound as the cat sinks canines into his nose. That'll leave a mark. Oof.

"Chet, leave him alone. We need him alive."

God, saying that, I don't sound much better than him, do I?

"Don't feel pity for him. Self-loathing will do neither of us any good." Jasper tells me, dry-eyed and calm.

I wonder…can vampires cry?

My vision blurs, my heart clawing at my insides in desperate pleas.

"Coralline, we need you calm now. Come on. Get it together."

So my tiny rational mind is magnified, blown up, like a duplicator set to whirring and clicking in my skull, allowing the calm to spread from the epicenter of tranquility. So he doesn't give you emotions, exactly, but takes already existing ones and lets them have an effect. That's better. You can't get something out of nothing.

"M-" Breathe, sweetie, breathe. "We need – need – "

Click, whirr.

"Let everyone go. The vampires, Glen, me. Let us go and…" There's something else, what is it? What else?

"And stop trying to kill wood nymphs." Jasper finishes.

"You know I can't – I can't" Max's plea is cut short when Jasper eagerly feeds his face some more floor.

"You can and will."

"HELP!"

Oh my, Jasper. You cruel fiend! I'm sure a good extra helping of fear might lubricate the info flow. Hm.

These vampire types are kinda useful, huh?

"Okay, okay! I'll – Cora, don't let them do this! Cora, please, Cora. Mermaid, there's no room for sentiments in science I-"

"This?" I take a step towards him, motioning to Jasper to get off. I always was stronger than him, anyways, even if I haven't eaten in over a day. If I'm dizzy from hunger and I feel like tiny insects are crawling everywhere on my skin, that dirt has been permanently ground into the cracks between skin cells, that my hair is oily enough to form dreadlocks.

"This, Max? This isn't science." I hiss, kneeling down to his level.

He looks up at me, and for all the world I feel like I'm the one who's the villain right now, hurting an innocent civilian, that I'm the cruel human and he the test subject.

But I have a reason.

"This is genocide."

He doesn't reply, doesn't defend himself or deny it all. He just stares at me and I at him, because I need to brand this face in my memory and remember that you can't trust someone just because you want to.

"Max. Show us out of here." My voice is quiet, emotionless. Just do it, Max. Just get us out of here and we'll avoid the Big Bad Boss Fight.

He stares at me, considering it. Seeing whether or not I'm serious. If I even have the guts to…

To…

To do what I can't even think.

"Fine." He spits, slowly rising to his feet.

Too slowly for me. I grab his collar and yank him up, though not to his full height, my muscles straining with the weight.

"Lead the way, _sir_." I say, tugging him towards the convenient hole in da wall. Alright, I'm so getting one of these.

With a low growl, Jasper gets behind us, gently reminding Max that he's not getting out of this.

"Where to first?" I ask, venomous etiquette in my voice. I hate him. For everything.

I hate him for meeting me when I'd just gotten out of college, falling in love with me and leaving.

I hate him for coming back and making me do it all again.

I hate him for being so sincere about it.

I hate him for making me not realize that Glen didn't actually look at everybody 'that way'.

I hate him for distracting me from his horrible deeds.

I hate him for destroying all those animals and using their bodies.

I hate him for killing things.

I hate him for using the things he killed to kill other things.

I hate him for thinking that all of that was justified.

And with that, any scrap of pity, any empathy or sympathy, it vanishes. There was no justifying what he's done. But the least he can do is undo what he can.

"We have to go…right, then…then up the stairs where there should be some keys…in my office…"

I resist the urge to sneer, and repeat his words in a mocking voice. 'There should be some keys in my office.'

"Then go. And don't try anything." He shivers involuntarily, but begins forward without a word to me.

We start down a hallway of laughable normalcy. Grey paneled walls and fluorescent lights greet us, with a flat blue carpet of questionable quality. Very straightforward.

We take the first right and come up on a staircase. Just where he said it'd be.

Something isn't right. It shouldn't work this smoothly, should it?

Max is slowing down, the closer we get.

"Doesn't feel so great to be the prisoner instead of the jailer for once, does it?" Jasper taunts.

"Don't, Jasper. You do and you're no better than him."

He snorts like I'm being kind of prudish, but says nothing more.

"Keep going." I tell Max coldly, determined to say as little as possible to him.

But he trips, right before the first stair, and I catch him by the collar to pull him back up.

"Keep. Going."

"Don't do this Cora, please. You don't know what you're doing."

"I know better than you do. Go now." I struggle against doing something cruel and slave-owner-esque, like kicking him in the calf.

The climb up the stairs feels longer than climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a windstorm, though it takes only minutes, and we arrive in a glorified cubicle.

No swirling glass test tubes full of bubbling purple liquids are there to look menacing, nor are there any white lab coats or assembly line robots or mutant animals in cages.

Just a rather outdated computer on a Formica desk with a swivel chair, a stapler, tape, and a picture in a picture frame.

The picture, it's of us at an ACA convention in Portland, four months after we'd started dating.

It sickens me.

"Come on. Get your keys and we'll go."

"This is a mistake, I'm begging you, don't-"

"Just get them."

He watches me for a second, pursing his lips, before I see that hope in his eyes go dead. He nods.

"Jasper, why don't you wait outside. I got it from here." Jasper frowns, looks from him to me, but goes to wait just outside on the stairwell, closing the door behind him.

"Cora," Max pleads, taking a step towards me.

I don't say anything.

"Please, Cora, take it back before it's too late. Don't make me-"

"I won't let you continue this."

"Please. I'm not doing this because I want to but you have to know-"

"Max." I can only say that, because if I continue my voice is going to crack open.

He comes forward, places a hand on my cheek. I don't flinch.

Slowly, so that I know what he's doing and can pull away if I want, so that I see the tears forming in his eyes, so that I feel the pain in his movements, he leans in.

And he kisses me. I kiss him back, just a little bit.

"I'm so sorry, mermaid." He chokes, whispering against my lips.

"Max?" Shaking his head, he backs up, wiping a tear from his eye with the palm of his hand.

"I'm so sorry."

"What have you-"

That's when my vision goes up in flames.

XXX

"Damnit Max! What did you do!" I screech, though I cannot see him, fumbling with the handle of the door.

_All I see is the black, a deep, penetrating black that seems to suck the very life out of everything around it. An all encompassing ebony that muffles the world. _

That sick bastard, ran away as soon as he could hide behind his monsters.

The handle clicks and in a single movement I open it, slip out and slam it again, though I know a door won't even falter it.

_But more frightening is what I can hear. A dull thud, a thumping as a body is thrown against the wall._

Those dreams, déjà vu and future prediction at the same time, they come back to me now.

_And roaring. Oh, god, the roaring, like thousands of rusty tin cans in a cement mixer shouting together. Like a lion and an elephant and a tiger combined into a single, terrible sound, the very essence of an unnatural beast solidified and converted into a sound, far worse than nails on a chalkboard. _

It's silent now, but the thunder of its feet as it tramples the rapidly diminishing distance between us is more than enough to scare me shitless.

"Coralline? Cora?"

"Go, GO!" I screech, half-pushing him down the stairs.

Luckily Jasper catches on to my fear, zipping down and pulling me with him just before one of _them_ splinters the door above with a horrible crashing sound.

We run. We run and we run and we run, down what must be miles and miles of hallway flanked by grey panels and fluorescent lights.

Soon I feel my abdomen protest, a cramp in my stomach like a stitch in my movement, my breath burning my lungs. It isn't an exaggeration, and with every inhalation I feel the breath rip at my larynx and set my lungs on fire, licks of air clawing at my innards.

My throat aches for a gulp of water.

And all the while, I hear it behind me, having long lost sight of Jasper, my legs - trembling with fatigue - vibrating with the floor every time it takes a step.

_But it stops. There's a dull, muffled silence and there's nary a sound save for my breath. In a sense, it's more terrifying. _

Shit. It's gone and I'm not sure if I should keep running or try (in vain) to get my bearings.

I'm supposed to do something. I have to get something. What do I have to get?

It's that dream. You're running from something and towards something, but you don't know what or where either thing is.

_Soon they are dull thuds, progressing to thunderous booms as the screeching beast tears into the room, my only shield the blackness surrounding me._

_And then it begins to tear._

No, no, no, not that part of the dream. No no no.

Glenwood! Glenwood, Jasper, Alice, Emmett, Rosalie, Chet, Edward. Them. That's who I need to find.

Damnit! The keys, the keys are still in his room! This place is a Carthaginian hell!

There's a growl, deep seated and void of emotion, right behind me.

So I turn around.

Because I am determined: this time, _this time_. I will not fold and buckle and give up.

I will fight this thing and I will win, or I will die.

Okay, maybe just win.

XXX

"Come on, big boy. Come on. Just a little closer." I sing, dropping into a low crouch and backing away from him.

It. I meant it.

The beast does not eye me carefully, as a sentient creature would, but stands statue still, eyes focused on the space directly in front of it (if they are focused on anything at all), perhaps weighing its possible options at the moment.

"Come on." I whisper, stepping that one little inch closer to the puddle. One little inch might make all the difference anyway.

You know those sounds you hear in CG dinosaur films from the BBC? That is the only thing that this creature's vocal chords can compare to.

A muffled roar escapes as it takes one step towards me, unsure how to best deal with prey that is asking for its death.

"That's right. Just keep moving…moving forward." I can only hope it doesn't know its own weakness.

God, this is beyond frightening.

At any point he could just lumber forward and pick up enough momentum to leap right over to puddle and fit his great maws over my puny skull and –

But that doesn't happen.

He could grow angry and grab me by the arm and drag me into the water with him, electrocuting –

But that doesn't happen.

He could completely avoid the puddle and stay right where he is, barring me any possible access of the –

But that doesn't happen.

What does happen is this: he paces, back and forth, taking two steps towards me and one and a half back, then four back and three forward. It goes on like this, giving me hope that he's coming forward or scaring me that he's going back.

What's he waiting for?

"Go on. Look at me, right here, helpless human, not moving. What're you waiting for?"

He hisses, claws clacking on the stone of the crevasse - the one by which we came in.

"What're you waiting for?" I whisper again, gently.

"You waiting for a trigger, that it? Not sure what to do if I'm not screaming?" My voice grows louder, braver.

I wince. I hate to do this. I really do. Such a shame.

I reach up to my face, pull my glasses off my nose. The metal hooks behind my ears and the rubber perches on the bridge between the lenses are hot from contact with my skin.

Not sure exactly why, I fold the arms in, making it more compact.

"Well, come and get it." I murmur, and throw them into the puddle.

And for the second time in as many minutes, I see only flames.

A/N: Just to clarify, first-time-flame-vision was a metaphor for her freaking out.

Okay, folks, so I was thinking: what if I put sort of a mini-story after the epilogue here, with flashbacks (and probably different points of view) about Cora/Glen history? (Man, I need an abbreviation for Cora/Glen, because I refuse to say CG).

(Clen!)

(Glora!)

(eww)

Point being, er, would you want to read that (I know at least one of you would)?

Okays, so…questions? Comments? Blatant insults? I have time.

Also: haha, I spread the climax out between two chapters. Now to write the other half of it. Er.

You made it all the way to the bottom! Good for you! I'll stop wasting your time now!


	29. Heart Of The Beast

A/N: Okay, I opted for a slightly less traditional climax. So SUE ME.

Actually, on the topic of suing, I don't own Twilight. The time of day or the series.

And finally, before we get to the other half of the climax: those of you that thought of Corwood? LOVE IT. Next to Sherwood in England and it's full of magical beasties! Yay!

* * *

"_Shit!_"

That seems an appropriate exclamation when your adversary goes up in flames and starts scorching your trainers.

"Shit shit shit!"

Wait, _flames_?

What?

The last one most certainly did not go up in flames. Hmm. Could it have something to do with – never mind.

Quoth the raven, nevermore!

Wow, am I out of it.

"Shit." I say again, rather halfheartedly, stubbing my toe on the ground as the smoke recedes.

I stand around kind of hopelessly, waiting for…something. Not quite sure what. I have a headache of such epic proportions right now, I'm not thinking clearly.

Okay, do NOT judge.

I am hungry, I am thirsty, my back is aching again, I have blisters, a headache, I haven't slept in ages…

And tomorrow is Monday.

Bloody fuck.

And, now I have to sneeze. Really, really badly.

"At-CHOO!" Comes my little pipsqueak of a sneeze.

Oh, that is just _so _fitting.

I hate you world. I hate you so much.

Okay guys, I have been having a really bad day.

I'm so tired. I am so tired right now. I think I'm gonna cry.

"Shit," I tell the world, sitting down in a corner, leaning up against the cool rock and waiting for my mentality to return to normal.

I'll just sit here for a little while, until my feet don't hurt quite so much. That's what I'll do.

What's that smell?

Bloody hell, that smell is me.

I raise a hand to my nose and take a whiff: dirt and rust and wet dog. It's a smell of fatigue. That's the only way to describe it. That I've been out too long.

Kay, on the count of twenty…five, I'll get up.

One…

Two…

Twenty three…

Wait, what? Too fast!

Twenty five.

Okay, maybe on the count of thirty.

Damnit.

With a groan and a protest of my feet, which, did I add, feel as if every muscle and tendon has been beaten with an iron rod, I stand.

"Shi-whatever." Man, it just isn't worth it anymore.

Okay, so…um, office bound?

"Ms. Regence?"

"What?" I ask, turning around, frankly pissed that whomever it is waited until now (after I'd sworn five or six times) to say something.

"Um." Hello, wolf. Sheesh.

No, wait, how is it that ALL of the werewolves are here but not one vampire?

Harsh, guys. Real harsh.

"Hang on. How did you all get out?"

The lot of them all exchange glances, evidently trying to hide behind one another.

"The doors were open. So we left."

"What?"

Jacob comes forward with a sheepish grin and offers me this:

"Well, all this stuff started ringing like a fire drill or something, you know, waa-ooo waa-ooo waa-ooo. Then the doors opened up and we found each other."

"What about the others?"

He frowns. "Others?"

"The vampires."

"The wellbeing of the leeches isn't really our main concern."

"Oh, jeez. Well it is mine." A groan.

"Do we have to help?"

"Go home." The last thing I need is a bunch of teenage boys interrupting my train of thought.

XXX

"No, durnit. Left? It was left." I plod down the hallway, trying to remember how I got to my room. Retrace my steps.

"Jasper?"

Nop. Er.

Okay, okay, left. Here we go. Turning left…

Oh look, more hallway.

"Anybody?"

Well, now that I've gone and used a general pronoun nothing's going to come. Where is everybody? I was kind of under the impression that vampires can't teleport. Then again…

I sigh. Every muscle in my leg is straining against movement, trying to persuade me to just take a little break. It's like doing forty squats and then being told you have to go up seven flights of stairs to get to your bed.

And the hunger, my god, the hunger. It's like the juices of my stomach have grown to boiling temperature, hissing and spitting and bubbling in the pit of my belly and the evaporated vapors drift up to the back of my throat, leaving a hot metallic taste in my mouth.

I can barely think straight. Can't wait to get home and take a shower. Eesh.

But as soon as my thoughts stray to the domestic, to my pain and fatigue and hunger and uselessness and glasses I hear –

I hear –

A roar. But roar doesn't even do it justice. Like someone took a bag of aluminum foil and set a bunch of cats with forks inside it and then threw it into an active volcano.

And following it are thunks and thuds and a terrible crashing sound.

"Glenwood?! Glen!"

_Shh._

With a screech, something goes flying through the wall directly in front of me.

"Duck, Cora! Flatten yourself against the side of the wall!" I hear a muffled voice, _his _muffled voice from the other side of the wall, though I seem unable to move for the life of me (literally).

There's another one. It's bigger. It's whiter. And it's got saber teeth.

Really, Max? Really? Saber teeth? You do realize that those cats only ever used them for a single fatal bite, that they were honeycombed and snapped quite often? That they weren't nearly as menacing as the Flinstones would have you believe? Good Lord.

"Bloody…bloody…oh, HELL." I mutter, getting in a good swift kick before I duck into the hole its body made.

Wait, is it still alive? Never mind. I don't care.

One leg through the hole, duck my body under, other leg, back up out of Hole Range…bump into a tree…

Sorry, what?

"Cora! I told you to back up! It's going to come back in-"

I stop his words, turning around against his chest and molding my lips to his.

Take _that_, you overprotective tree man.

And despite himself, I'm quickly learning that this is his weakness (you try going a hundred thousand years without a girlfriend). He wraps two arms around my waist, pulling me closer, pushing his head forward to deepen the kiss with a long inhalation.

Too soon he pulls away, letting me down (to the knowledge of neither of us, he'd lifted me slightly so that I had to stand on my tiptoes).

He surveys me quietly for a few precious seconds, as if appraising me.

"Up the stairs, to his office, keys in the first drawer on the left. The rooms will be all on the next hallway left after you descend the stairs, if I overheard correctly. Do not wait for me. This is nothing you can help with."

His arms slide down, back from my waist, and he takes my hand in his delicately, bringing it to his mouth to kiss the little snapdragon.

"It's little but brave, just like you. Remember that." He whispers before releasing me, and heading out the, er, other hole in the wall.

Brave? Hardly. I'm the farthest thing from brave you'll ever see.

I'm afraid of everything.

But, I guess, the little ring helps. I like it.

I've named it Elsa, did I forget to mention that? I thought it was fitting.

So, seeing as I've been given the easiest task possible and because if I don't do _something_ right now I'll worry myself sick that something might happen to Glen – he said he couldn't die, not that he couldn't get horribly injured or maimed – I start down the hall and head for where I seem to remember the office being. Alright. I can do this, this one tiny thing to free the vampires and then I'll just let them take it over from there and I'll go home and call in sick tomorrow.

I might end up quitting anyway. My job, I mean.

Who am I kidding?

With an adjustment of my sore shoulders, I start forward, willing my feet: just one more step. Okay, sorry, one more. One more, last one, I promise. Think you could manage another? Last one. Okay, just one more time.

Oh god, the last thing I want to see right now are those stairs, those things I'm going to have to climb. How many are there?

Nine?

TEN?!

I'm not going to make it! Go on without me, narrative, go! Leave me here!

Damnit, why'd I have to do this alone? Oh well.

No, seriously. I had no problem killing the bear, but stairs are going to be my ultimate hurdle? Really, fate? That's the _best _you can come up with.

Fine. With a groan, I begin my ascension, step by odious step, dragging my half-dead legs behind me.

The one thing I remember from gym is when they taught us about muscular endurance, how to build up muscle. Once your muscles get tired after a repeated action, say your arm is fatigued after doing twenty lifts of a five pound weight, it's gotten little tears in the muscle which heal. The more you do this, the better they heal until new muscle is built up.

Well, my muscular tears are more than little. I feel like a thousand tiny Chets have been set free in my thighs and are wreaking havoc on the tissue.

At the top of the stairs, I see just how final Max's actions were. Who knows where he is now, but I doubt he'll return to his office as the center has been visibly trampled.

Ironically, the picture of him and me (in my mind, there is no longer an _us _or a _we_) is perfectly intact.

So a grab it and throw it on the floor, shattering the glass, and extracting the photo. I'll burn it when I get home. Burn it or soak it or pour acid on it or stick it in the washing machine with a wrench.

"Top…top…top left…" I mutter to myself, running my hands along the drawers in the still good half of the desk. The other half has been cracked, the middle split with jagged ends.

Finding the drawer, I yank it open, grabbing the first shiny metal non-paperclip object I see. Lookit that, keys, okay, all done now.

Wait, keys. You need to use something with keys, right?

Oh, man, I still have to let them all out. Stupid – never mind.

With a moan, I trudge my way back towards the stairs. Looking down, I plop.

Now, by plop, I mean I sit down on the first stair and thunk my way down.

Plop. Plop, plop. Sliding on my butt down each stair until I reach the bottom. Listen, you know that crap in stories about the protagonist finding that last little bit of inner strength, that iron will that comes to the forefront in times of need?

You do? Good. Listen carefully:

TOTAL. BULL CRAP.

Not when you're running on empty and haven't showered in what feels like ages.

"Ugh," I say to no one in particular, dragging my feet behind me as I head leftward.

Luckily, however, the doors present themselves almost immediately, and I head for the first one.

Raising the keys in my hand, I feel my fingers tremble and shake uncontrollably, my vision blur.

_It's little but brave, just like you._

I look down at my ring, the one I named Elsa, and press my thumb and forefinger on either side, causing its mouth to open.

Leaning down, I take in a little breath.

It's like inhaling summer. Musky humidity mixed with plants and wood porches and fried food and beaches.

_Remember that._

I feel my stomach, though still complaining, quiet down, lucidity returning to my mind.

Click, whirr. With a shake of my head, I insert the key into the lock (it fits, thank goodness) and with a few tired blinks and an inevitable yawn I turn the key, opening the door with it.

Well, vault would really be more appropriate. Goody, another door.

After getting through that one (and I still have four more rooms to do), I find a hallway. Luckily, the door before that one has been smashed beyond recognition and I see a rather dusty Emmett with a chunk of drywall in his hair pacing back and forth angrily.

"Ms. Regence! Dude, you're awesome! It was completely impossible to get through that other door!"

He rushes up and makes to hug me, but I take a step back. Instead I grab his hand, palm up, and stick the key ring in there, closing his fingers around the parcel.

"I need to-"

"Uh huh." He nods, giving me a pat on the head as if I were an obedient collie (grr) before heading out the now open doors.

I realize that I'm still holding the key I used to open his door, but that doesn't matter anymore. Besides, I have one more thing to do before I can go home.

I stagger out of the white room, down the hallway, turn right – I feel like I'm in an office building – and limp my way back to where I seem to remember seeing Glen last.

Coming upon the hole in the wall (the one made by the Really Big Bear, not the Max Set On Me Bear or Chet), I step through, hoping to see some clue of where them two have gotten.

I twist the ring around my finger nervously, careful not to damage Elsa, and look down both ends of the hallway.

They each end rather quickly in turns, in the same direction, but I see nothing down either-

"Cora! NO!"

Before I can even register whose voice it is, or where it's coming from or what it's regarding, I see a huge white shape thundering towards me on feet of stone, eyes gleaming cold with malice.

I don't have time to duck, flatten myself against the wall, get in the fetal position, anything.

Just like last time.

And just like last time, it's on me in a flurry of motion and I feel the tear of metal as cold as the key still in my hand…

The key…

_Now what if I were to simply punch you here, right in the rib cage. Or lower down?_

Thoughtlessly, not bothering to mull over what good it might do against this _thing_, I stab upwards blindly. Contact.

I feel my hand suddenly enveloped by fur as the key is driven deeper, and with the palm of my hand I hammer it further, further in, into the machinery and the heart of the beast, my thoughts resonating in my mind.

_Further, deeper, harder!_

And with a gasp, I feel the weight of it evaporate, though likely not of its own free will.

"Oh, Cora. Cora, Cora. Coralline, you sweet, stupid little oddling."

I feel a small pressure put on the wound on my belly – the one that I'm almost certain mirrors exactly the one on the other side.

"Gl-"

"Shh." He reaches up with one finger, lifting one eyelid, the other.

"Can you stand, move at all? I've stopped the bleeding for now, until it can be treated proper." He must be really worried, to use improper grammar.

"Yeah." With my thumb, I finger my snapdragon, Elsa, a tiny amount of strength returning.

_It's little but brave, just like you._

"Come." He slides one arm underneath my back, lifting me up to stand on my own two feet, if a tad shakily.

I think about how much my nose misses my glasses right now, instead of all the things my body wants. I'll be home soon.

_Home._

It's never sounded more inviting.

"I need your help now, as soon as we get outside. You won't have to do much, just as I say." Too tired to protest, I nod, allowing my numb body to be led out of the building, step by arduous step.

I could almost cry out from joy when I feel familiar, lumpy wet rock beneath me and smell the musty odor of mold and lichen that means we must be almost out. My eyes are still mostly closed, however, and the little they are open is focused on Glenwood, dimly registering the presence of the vampires around me. Good, everybody else got out okay.

I do start crying, a little bit and inaudibly, a half-tear blotting my dirty cheek – my dirty – my –

Blood crusted. The thing. I hadn't realized at the time, but when I was…killing isn't the right word, but it'll have to suffice, the bear, it's blood splattered me. I feel it now, thick and clotting, sticking my hair to my neck and my clothes to my skin and my skin to the air.

I might start convulsing, if it weren't for my surroundings, the sudden smell of wet pine needles and hemlock. Good.

I open my eyes, staring at the cliff.

"I apologize if this hurts you, but you must understand that what I am about to do is very difficult."

"Okay." I say complacently, allowing my hands to be taken in his.

"Just think about a tree. The one you used to play guitar in, as a teenager."

I falter, wondering just how, exactly, he came upon this knowledge.

But knowing (hoping) that I'd get a chance to ask later, I picture it. Just on the edge of a field, and I notice that now, the last time I saw it, it was missing a large branch almost two feet in diameter, and the bark was always stretched and smooth in a strange way. How the way it grew, with a little curved indent there and a smooth bump here, made it look muscular despite being a photosynthetic organism.

_Crash._

I hear a sound, a creaking and a breaking and a stretching and a terrible ripping like I've never heard before, overpowering even the sound from my dream of my own flesh tearing, which I still hear some nights just before I go to sleep.

"You may open your eyes."

I don't want to.

"Please, Cora."

So I do. I turn to look at the origin of the noise, the crevasse in the cliff…

In the…

The…

A tree, just like the one I pictured but magnificently larger, has burst up through the crack, splintering the rock, and surely cracking what was previously inside it. Who was previously inside.

"Max!" I cry, starting forward out of pure guilt alone, but something stops me.

I watch as the tree shoots up faster and faster, splitting more as it goes. Glenwood has his arm quite firmly around my waist, bracing me against his side. But we both know: it's more to prevent me from running in there to save _him_ than it is affection.

I struggle uselessly, so that tomorrow I can say that at least I _tried_. But his arm doesn't budge.

"I'm sorry, Coralline. But this way is best. I'm sorry," he repeats, bringing me to his chest and crushing me to him, stroking my hair.

"I'm so, so very sorry," he whispers against my head.

A/N: So yeah. I know that some of you said Max should live, but once again, I bring up the topic of me having no social or moral values at all! MUAHAHA! DIE MAX DIE!

Okays, so, one more chapter, then the epilogue, then Corwood flashback time. And I think I've got a pretty amusing idea for a sequel forming in my head, but that may take a little while because I'd like to get back to The New Definition of Motel Hell, which has gone unfairly neglected. Poor Mort. My little Indian vampire (pouts).

Now you feel like taking a shower, don't you? After all that talk of skin crawling and heads itching. Eww.


	30. Hemlock and Dirt and Wood

A/N: -sniffle- Chapter 30! We made it to 30 chapters, folks! –sobcry-

Okay, I'm assuming you're all as much music freaks as I am, so just pick a song you think fits the mood here (believe me, you'll get the idea). But if you need some help, I suggest Halou – Honeythief or Everything is OK (or both). Again, seeqpod dot com.

So, okay, guys, I'll save my gushing for the epilogue. Hee. But, this chapter is mostly fluff/tying up loose ends/pretty _INTENSE_ fluff. I figured that everyone deserves it. But if there's anything I missed, tell me and I'll try and add it to the epilogue.

* * *

"Go home, all of you," Glen says a bit forcefully.

At least, I'm assuming that's Glen, because it sounds like what I remember Glen sounding like. It feels like Glen who I'm pressed up to right now. It feels like him. Warm and soft and mostly human. Safe. It feels like him because it feels safe.

"Coralline," he says softly, stroking my disgusting blood encrusted hair, crushing my blood soaked body to his, my stinking frame. I want to be clean, now.

No, I want two things:

I want to be clean. And I want to be with Glenwood.

Though I know I must disgust him, I bury my nose in his chest and close my eyes. He smells like hemlock. And dirt. And wood. It is a nice smell.

"Coralline." He groans quietly, rocking my body to his.

Without asking my permission, and a good thing too as I'm not sure I'd even be able to give it in my state, he picks me up and transports me back home.

_Home._

I'm not sure if he carried me or did his wood nymph thing, but I don't care either. It got me home fast.

_Home._

I stumble, my arm on his shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to walk on my own. I don't even make it to the kitchen before he scoops me up, trotting gently towards the bathroom, careful not to shake me.

I want to tell him I love him and that I'm not angry at all, but I'm too tired to do anything but perform the most basic of bodily functions, which doesn't include thinking or talking.

Once in the washroom, he sets me on my feet, steadying me by the waist with both hands. Both deliciously warm, dry, clean hands.

"Coralline." He says it again, reaching behind me to undo my braid, removing the hair scrunchie, stained dark from the blood of the beast and untwining my hair, letting it fall onto my shoulders despite still being molded back in a helmet of dried fluid.

Without ever letting go of me, he reaches over to the shower to pull the plastic curtain and turn on the water, letting it get hot.

He could have taken me to a stream or a brook or that pond, but he knows that right now I need hot rain in a ceramic tub surrounded by tiles that smell like concrete.

He turns back to face me fully again.

I feel deft fingers begin to work at the buttons on my shirt, prying open three or four before I stop him with a moan and a shake of my head. I need my clothes in there too, I need them to get clean at the same time.

My eyes barely register a small but definite nod on his part.

Dimly, I wonder if it is hard for him to remain this professional about undressing me and sticking me in a hot shower, when even touching me must be revolting to him at this point. But I'm thankful to him for it, and wish I could even form the words to tell him so. My mutter comes out as an unintelligible mumble.

"Coralline." He whispers, fingering the button on my jeans as if asking if I want those on in the shower as well.

_Shower. Mm._

I nod imperceptibly, so he adeptly undoes the button and the zipper, but does not pull them off, somehow knowing exactly what to do.

So with two strong arms underneath my armpits, he lifts me into the shower, never letting go of me, always having hands on my waist or my shoulders or on my neck. He pulls the curtain closed behind us, closing us in this tiny world of seven or eight square feet total, holding my back to his chest at every time and aiming the front of my body towards the spray.

I refrain from moaning openly with rapturous exhilaration as steaming hot droplets sear my skin, like the temperature of the water will disinfect the poison that I feel covering my body, the now-maroon caked, cracked blood. It seeps into it all and bit by bit, chunk by chunk, it seems to melt and fall to the floor. I feel my clothing, though, my shirt, still stained. With a flurried squirming, I somehow manage to communicate to Glenwood:

_Off._

Reaching around to my stomach I feel his fingers, warm, soft fingers with graceful tips, undo the remaining buttons and in a desperate, hurried motion helps me shrug it off so that I'm wearing only a bra on my torso. I don't care. I need the water everywhere.

I hear a wet splud as the shirt hits the shower floor, but care not. I feel Glen's arms wrap around my stomach again, holding me to his seething warm chest, more as security and handlebars for me than as affection as he pulls me to him.

My thoughts do not touch on the truculent bears or their attack, only straying to the aching wound now on my belly.

My pants, too, are too tight and confining. I scratch desperately at the top of them, trying to get them down. Glenwood helps with this, too, kneeling on the floor of the shower and tugging them off of me, holding my ankles as I step out of them.

I feel far too naked, far too bare to have someone else in here with me, or at least I would if I had had the ability to think straight or even at all at the moment. But I just know how good the torrid rain feels, beating against my chest and my legs. I doubt I'd even have been able to stand if Glen weren't there, holding me up, holding me towards the torrent.

I reach up with shaking arms, to my hair, scrubbing the last few little chunks of caked blood out. My hair is still a little oily, but it is nothing compared to what it felt before.

And when I feel that my front, my stomach and my breast and my legs and my face and my neck, is as clean as possible, I turn around so that I can wash the horror off my back as well.

Now facing Glenwood, his arms do not move from around me. But looking at his face now with my half-conscious eyes, he seems just as desperate to be close, to reaffirm our bond, to mold our bodies together and be clean together.

"Coralline," he murmurs as I numbly slide my arms up, around his neck, really as much because I want to as I need the support. I feel him place his hand behind my neck, massaging me with his thumb, his own eyelids half opening then half closing then half opening again, like he's having trouble focusing on anything.

I know I am, having trouble focusing on anything but the feel of him beneath my fingertips, our abdomens pressed together, that and the constant storm of sizzling rain against my back and my neck and the top of my head.

So I want to feel him beneath my lips as well, and place them against his chest, drawing my mouth up along his collar bone.

"Coralline," he moans softly, eyes closed in rapture.

My body is killing me, the warmth pooling in my belly defying every smarting muscle, trying to put its wants before the needs of the rest of my body.

It's been too long.

"Oh God, Cora," he whispers, hands grabbing my waist and tightening, gripping harder.

I don't know what to do, I honestly don't, the warmth spreading in my body like an intense fire, telling me to ignore the pleas for food from my stomach and the plea for sleep from my eyes and the plea for healing from my abdomen. The fire burns me up inside and begs to be fed.

"Coralline." He says once more, moving his mouth to mine, grazing his lips and teeth along the line of my jaw. I shiver despite the scalding rain on my back, closing my eyes and leaning into his touch, breathing heavily.

I return the favor, kissing and biting his neck gently to a hiss of pleasure from him. Even now, my hands resting on his shoulders, his skin tingles.

It's strange, this reminds me of a dream I once had – a dream, not a nightmare.

"Coralline. Cora, stop, please." He sounds pleading, like if I don't stop he won't be able to, but I pull away with a pang of lead where the fire was.

Despite myself, my upper, more sensible self protesting, a feeble little voice somewhere deep down thinks:

_Don't you want me?_

"Oh Cora, you need sleep. You need food. You need so many more things before this. I'm sorry for taking advantage of your weak state. I hope you'll forgive me."

Forgive - ?!

I sigh. The fire in my belly doesn't ebb, but the fire on my back is now only lukewarm, and the spray is getting rapidly less urgent.

"God, you're beautiful," he whispers, grazing his nose against mine before reaching behind me to turn off the shower.

With a sigh, my body slumps against his chest, my eyes fully closed now.

His arms shaking, I feel him lift me up, one arm under my knees, stepping over the lip of the tub and carrying my dripping wet body down the soft, carpeted hallway down to the bedroom.

He lays me on the bed, careful to maneuver my head onto the pillow with the utmost care, smoothing my hair back from my face.

God, I'm still wearing nothing but girl boxers and a bra. That's disgusting.

"Glenwood," I whisper, just before I succumb to the peaceful black of slumber.

XXX

I dream of nothing, and it is peaceful.

I dream of an empty, black nothingness that isn't black and isn't nothing, but is closer to brown than it is to blue and is softer than music and easier than water.

I dream soft.

XXX

A/N: (undoubtedly that is the **mushiest** **mush** I have **ever** **mushed**)

Now pause for a moment here…hang on…pause…dream soft…okay, now go on. (Hee! Sorry. That sleeping thing sounds like a bad poem, doesn't it?)

XXX

When I crack my eyes open they protest immediately, stinging with the message from my brain that they should be closed immediately.

Hey, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

I roll over on my stomach, my arms forming a halo around my pillow, staring at the open door which leads to a carpeted hallway.

With a shiver, I realize that while I am clean and rested my body still demands nourishment.

And with another shiver, I realize that I'm only wearing girl boxers and a bra, and that no one (including myself) wants to see this much of my body.

So, running my hands through my dry, crisp hair (damn, someone let it dry loose and now it's curly), I head for my closet, wondering again why it is that I refuse to own a bathrobe.

But as soon as I step one foot off the bed, I am greeted with a threatening _hiss_ of pain, originating from my own mouth, and I thunk down again, clutching my side.

"Cora." My eyes still closed in from the lashing hurt, a sharp whip's soul having been embedded in my stomach, I recognize Glenwood's voice, feel him come into the room, the pressure on the floor communicated to me via the bed frame.

"Cora, you need food, then we will deal with the pain."

I feel my bed grunt and bounce as he leaps up onto it, carefully seating himself cross-legged by my side. I open my eyes to slits, staring up at him.

"Can you eat now? Or does it hurt too much?"

Taking a heaving breath, I manage to find my first real words since the ordeal.

"I can eat." That's kind of sad. Shouldn't it have been a proclamation of my love or at the very least something husky and sexy like 'I want you now'?

Wait, ew.

"Good." He leaves and returns momentarily with a bread roll from God knows where, handing it to me instead of trying to feed me or otherwise demeaning what's left of my poor dignity.

I tear off a chunk, thankful that my mouth, at least, is strong enough to chew on its own.

My God, food feels so _good_. My stomach hushes finally, greeting the bread with open bubbly stomach-acid-y arms (again, ew) and I finish the thing in a matter of seconds.

I mutter my thanks, but he says nothing to me – with words. Once the food has fully disappeared, he brushes some of the hair out of my face, pushing me backwards so that I'm lying belly-up on the bed, staring at the ceiling, causing the still-open wound on my abdomen to scream its protest at being stretched.

He stands, the bed bouncing under the change in weight, and leaps to the other side of me, the side with the already-formed scar, seating himself in the same position as previous.

He takes his two hands, hovering over the wound, his face gentle and loving.

"Glen? What're you doing?"

"I am healing you."

"Shouldn't I go to the hospital?" Silently, he shakes his head, placing two fingers on either side of the beginning of the gash.

"It is poisoned, and it is a poison that cannot be eliminated by an antidote. Besides. My healing is more _fun_."

"Hm?"

"You'll see." He smiles secretively, to himself, before pressing together the two sides of the wound on one side.

I feel – literally nothing but his fingers on my skin, which is enough to drive me wild.

His hands press the gash closed, working up the line, the injury sealing and zipping closed wherever his hands come into contact with my skin, burning, tingling. My breathing begins to grow heavier, more labored, the fire in my belly reignited, if only slightly.

But it bursts into flames and threatens to burn me up when he leans down, pressing unfairly warm and soft lips to the closed laceration, tracing it with his mouth, his tongue.

"Oh, GOD," I groan, tangling my hands in his hair, basking in the heat radiating from his head and his lips.

"I told you my way was more fun," he breathes against my stomach, and I feel him smile against the now-smooth skin, before he goes back to kissing and sucking on it, much to my pleasure.

I gasp and shiver at the contact, coaxing his head upwards towards my own mouth, though to mark his trail he smoothes wet kisses up my stomach, ribcage, chest, neck, jaw.

He finally reaches my lips, presses us together. And just before his tongue slips into my mouth, with a trembling moan, I ask him:

"What are you doing?", as if I don't already know.

He smiles at me, almost…predatory, a hungry growl escaping his throat and his eyes flashing a burning copper.

"I'm finishing what we started."

XXX

A/N: Good GOD, no, I am not writing one of THOSE scenes. I'm fine with reading them, but never in my life will I ever write one, or at least not in the foreseeable future, no matter how much a couple of characters deserve it (Mort/Johnny shippers? Yeah…).

Er, but I can give you the next-best-thing?

XXX

Shaking, I pull on a t shirt from the drawer next to my bed, trembling with aftershocks, trying to smooth my shivering essence.

"I-"

He shakes his head, smoothing my hair back from my face and tugging the covers up around us, slipping an arm around my waist and burying his face in my neck.

"But the…the…school-"

"Shh." He whispers, sounding nearly as quivering as I feel as we both try to regain our breath.

"I called them. I told them that you had contracted an especially resilient strain of influenza, and that you were going to stay home until you were sure that you were better and weren't going to spread it to your students. I also told them that I was your friend, here in order to care for you. I hope you don't mind that I took that liberty."

"Oh," I breathe, already half asleep, snuggling further into him.

"Glen?"

"Yes?" He begins to draw patterns on my arm.

"Don't…never die, okay?"

He laughs, his body shaking and as a result mine with his.

"I don't plan on it. And fairly soon, the option will be eliminated for you as well."

"Will it hurt?"

"What?"

"Me…turning, whatever it's called." He brings his face up, pressing it to my ear.

"No. You won't even know it's happening."

"Don't tell me when you do it, okay? Not until I'm all done changing." I feel him nod.

So I fall asleep like that, curled up next to him and reveling in his warmth and wondering what it will be like, the wife of a dryad.

XXX

"You look much better."

"Hm? Yes, I feel much better. I just kind of wanted to come up here and read for a little."

Glenwood smiles at me, the breeze on the roof slapping his pants against his legs.

I close my book, careful first to note what page I'm on, scooting further into the sunlight heating the patch of roof I'm on.

"You seem to have been very careful to position yourself in the sunshine." He observes, coming to sit down next to me.

"Yeah. I don't know why, I just did."

He cocks his head to the side, regarding me.

"That means it is starting already. I had thought that…our…actions would spur it."

_Actions_, huh?

"How do you know?" He chuckles.

"Plants need sunlight, do they not?" He continues before I can say anything. "Of course, your default will always be human, as mine is plant. But you'll be able to change at will as I do. The transition is easy. Or, so I'm told."

"Told? By whom?"

"A friend of mine. Sister, really. Elsa. El. She found her mate eons ago, and we met when we were only saplings, at the dawn of the human era."

My breath ceases. Oh God, Glenwood.

"Glen, I'm so sorry, she – she…"

"She what?"

"Max." He winces, my recent inanition clearly having served only to remind him at every hurdle of who had caused this. "He mentioned to me. He talked about a wood nymph, a female he found, who he k- who killed herself to save her mate."

He watches me carefully, face blank and expressionless.

"Was her mate alright?"

"I think so, yeah."

Much to my confusion, he breathes a tremendous sigh of relief.

"Oh. Well, in that case, that's okay then."

"What? How is that okay?"

He laughs. "Well, if she knew he'd be alright, she wouldn't _really_ kill herself! Sure, it would look like she did, her physical form would be gone. That just means that it is the duty of another pair to reincarnate her in their next offspring."

I wonder what he's saying, if he's saying what I think he's saying, my blood pounding in my ears.

"So what do we do?"

He smiles, moving closer to me.

"Well, once you're done changing in a few months' time," he leans down, kisses my belly sweetly.

He doesn't finish, but I understand perfectly.

We'll have a child.

THE END ...

SORT OF

* * *

A/N: WAHAHAHA! That's gonna make for some good sequel material. Tree baby, meet Cullens. Cullens, meet tree baby (who's actually the reincarnate of a hundred thousand year old dryad waiting to become a physical adult before she can return to her awaiting mate and forest, give or take a few millennia). Ah, I love after-the-climax recuperation. It's my weakness. Plus the big ol' dryad meet is coming up again. Stupid Volturi and their meddling. And then you're gonna meet Forkett. Yay sequel. Boy do I have some shit planned for you people.

Oh yeah, you'll see. Oh you will see.

Okay, be honest: how many of you actually did the music thing I asked in chaptahs previous? Seriously. I bet you just skipped on past it. Pff.

Can I go on a mini-rant that absolutely NO ONE will understand?

I can?

Good.

MOONLIGHT COMES BACK TOMORROW! FRIGGIN' FINALLY!! YESSS! I'm pretty sure this affects none of you. But I also saw a clip from one of the new episodes and they kissed. Oh yeah, you know who I mean. And I mean really kissed. Not roller-coaster-episode-Mick-going-on-a-bullcrap-rant-about-the-universe-and-wants/needs-blah-blah kiss, I mean actual kiss. Also, and this is the best part: there is reportedly some SERIOUS ass-kicking. Oh my. I like ass-kicking. That's just about the reason I got into this show.  
Good God, I'm pitiful. I have no life. But then I wouldn't.

So keep your eyes peeled for the epilogue, the prequel chapter, and of course the sequel. I'll tell you the main idea behind it after the epilogue, mmkay? I'm glad we've come to a mutual agreement. High five.


	31. Epilogue

66,669. That's how many words this story had at chapter 30. Waaay too creepy for me. Okay, epilogue time, THEN I'll gush, then I have a favor to ask. Read on (if you dare muahaha evil laugh cackle thunder/lightning combo something ominous). Also, I really suggest you check out the picture on my profile (the link is titled 'Glen, meet new Cora. New Cora, meet Glen.') if you liked the last chapter. Don't worry, it's not gross or anything, but I saw it and thought of them and it made me happy.

--

"Hey, Ms. Regence! Where were you yesterday?"

Well, I was trying to figure out how to go back to looking human after I woke up covered in bark. And how was your day, Lauren?

"Oh, a mild case of the flu. Nothing to worry about." I flash her a quick (insincere) smile, striding confidently through the halls to my room. Come on, Cora, you can make it six hours without trying to photosynthesize. Though I think I'll open up all the windows anyway.

"Oh, gosh, I hope you feel better!"

Suck up. Of course I feel better, why else would I show up to school?

"I'm fine, thank you for your concern, dear." And with a condescending little nod and a very grandmotherly 'dear', I brush her off until second period.

Wait, hang on. What do I do first period?

Marine biology for seniors. Gotcha. Okay.

XXX

By the time myth studies rolls around, I'm already thoroughly pissed.

Do you know what I just got in my email box? A letter, from the principal, explaining how I am anticipated as a chaperone at prom. I have to go to prom. As a chaperone. And watch hormonal teenagers suck each other's faces off and grind their pelvises together 'dancing'.

I think I have to wear a PTA mom dress.

Lord, kill me now.

"Ms. Regence! Hihihihi!"

KILL ME NOW.

"Hello, Alice, it's lovely to see you looking so refreshed." Considering last time I saw you, you were a little bit charred and all your clothing was ripped. And I was, you know, human.

I wonder if they'll notice that change?

Oh good Lord, tell me they can't smell what else I did.

"Hey Ms. Regence."

"Hey Regence. Rege. Reggie. Regenator."

"Emmett, I wield a tremendous amount of power over you so I wouldn't go irritating me."

He looks like he's about to stick his tongue out, but luckily the bell rings and they all have to firmly seat their asses in chairs for the next hour.

"So, before anyone asks, I was out with the flu. Evidently a lot of you were concerned with my personal health, which is lovely. Now, would anyone like to tell me what we did last class?"

Rosalie raises her hand.

"Yes?"

"No, Ms. Regence, no one would like to."

Haha. You know what? I'm gonna tell all of the bears when Emmett's coming now.

That's right. I have the power, stupid vampires.

Now what are you going to do if your teacher is your superior inside _and_ outside school?

Well anyways.

"Would you mind telling me anyways, Rosalie?"

"Fairies. We talked about fairies."

"What about fairies?"

She's about to answer, but I interrupt again. "I'd like someone else to answer that question."

…

Oh, come on, guys, it's not the first day of school anymore.

"Yes, Angela?"

"We did the thing with think you know, do know and want to know."

"Ah, good. Alright, that means we can start with the real lesson today!"

Groans, moans and the occasional happy squeal from guess-who.

"So let's look at fairies in modern culture. I bet you've all heard stories and fairy tales about brownies, elves, pixies and the like."

"Yeah. Specially pixies." Mutters Edward, followed quickly by an "Ow! No more pointy things for Alice!"

"Now, children." I warn, cocking an eyebrow.

Hey, I wonder if Edward can still read my mind?

"But in modern stories, especially popular fiction, we see them as more human. Our size, general shape, same wants and needs. At least, when it comes to emotional ones. Why do you think it is that we've humanized fairies so much in modern culture?"

I have a policy of waiting ten seconds before calling on random people, in order to give them some thinking time.

Also, Edward is looking at me rather intently, so I believe this would be a good time to test out my new theory.

So as vividly as I can, I picture Bella and Jacob kissin' like there's no tomorrow. Cruel, I know, but there's no harm in it if I'm right.

No reaction, not even a twitch. Uhm.

Maybe he can only hear, not see. How about this:

Bella belongs with Jacob no argument.

Uh…

Bella and Jacob 4evar.

No? Um.

Alright, so that's a no on the wood nymph mind reading thing. Sweet.

"Anyone? A guess is fine."

Guys, I've given you lot a good twenty seconds. Come on.

"Yes Edward?"

"Is it because…our society today, we're fascinated by the idea that something not-quite-human could be…romantically…interested…" I see that he's losing momentum, so I nod my head in that 'see-class-this-is-the-answer-I-was-looking-for' way.

"Interested in humans. Or, a human. It adds different aspects to friendships, relationships and relations."

"Exactly."

The bell's going to ring in about five minutes, thank you world for this period being nearly over, so I pass out the fairy packets.

"I'd like you to do pages one and two for homework, but that's due next Monday. No other homework all week."

I hear a few cries of triumph, and can't hold back a little smile.

"See you tomorrow."

XXX

Finally on my way home (good god, it's hot in these jeans), I barely hold back a groan when I hear my name being called again.

"Ms. Regence!"

STOP CALLING ME THAT. I DON'T EVEN HAVE YOU AS A STUDENT.

"Yes?" I turn around, tapping my foot impatiently.

Jasper smiles at me sheepishly, running a hand through his hair.

"I just…I just wanted to…to say thanks."

"For what?" He stares at me, shocked.

"You know…"

"Not really, Mr. Cullen."

"Well, for – " He pauses, finally getting that my waves of exasperation are due to his not catching on at ALL, flashes me a purely Cullen grin.

"Oh, nothing. Good luck, though." He pats me on the back before heading back to the Cullen Cave or whatever it is that they do.

XXX

"Cora, what are you even doing?" I shrug, but continue with my actions.

"Grinding coffee beans."

"I thought you didn't like coffee." Glen comes up behind me, entirely human and making this entire situation feel strangely domestic like something out of a romantic comedy. Him wearing only pants and me in a tank top and sleeping shorts. And grinding coffee beans with a mortar and pestle, but still.

"I don't drink it. But I like to put grinds on ice cream sometimes."

He gives out a short, barking laugh. "That's disgusting."

"Is not! It's good!"

"Says she who refuses to eat asparagus."

"Yeah, well, shut up. You don't even eat food."

"I could if I so wished."

"But you don't. For all you know it's perfectly good! Now shush!"

He laughs, shaking his head, but allows me to continue in my strange penchant for coffee grounds on chocolate ice cream.

It's good, I tell you! Good!

"Oh, just let me have this one thing before I get dragged to deal with prom kids."

"What is a prom?"

I pause. "It's like…a…a big dance for kids in high school. Sort of an informal…ball." I'm butchering the explanation, but hey, what do I care?

I didn't even know teachers had to chaperone these things. Probably a hazing thing for the new teacher. Haha. Very funny guys. Wish I had the guts to quit.

"I see. And this would not be an enjoyable experience."

"I really, really doubt it."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

I wince. Considering that everyone's seen me with M-him, I don't want to know what they'd think if Glen showed up as my date.

"You could go, but not with me. Just sort of show up in that…that way that you do."

He laughs. "I shall be glad to do so."

"Good. Because I really think that a wood nymph will complete the look I'm going for."

"Really?"

"…Sweetie?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to go get dressed, you look up 'sarcasm' in the dictionary."

"Bah!" He grunts, grinning, and ruffles my hair.

XXX

"I feel like an idiot – I look like an _idiot_!" I groan, tugging on the sundress. You know, one of those generic little stretchy fabric, scoop-neck sleeveless things with a belt-y thing around my waist. Just plain old indigo and pale yellow. I didn't even know I owned this anymore.

"You're beautiful," Glen informs me, clamping hands on my arms.

"That's it, I'm changing back to my khakis."

"Oh please. I'll get you to that chaperone ball wearing a dress if I have to carry you on my shoulder the whole way. You used to have no problem wearing skirts or dresses." I tried to get 'prom' to catch on. It didn't. He's saying ball. Boy is he about to get sorely disappointed.

"That's because I was eighteen and didn't mind keeping my legs together at every possible second."

"Oh Cora, relax."

"I don't _want_ to relax, I want to change."

"Coralline Regence." It's strange, hearing him say my name out loud like that. Hm. "Put on your shoes, take your hair out of that godforsaken braid, and _woman-up_!"

Oh good God. He's got an inner Alice.

I love this man.

XXX

I am greeted at the door with a yellow chaperone sticker, a pitying smile from the secretary, and a disturbingly dark gym with far too many scantily-clad girls and nervous horny boys 'jamming' on the floor.

I would like to explain something to these girls, especially.

PSA to all teenagers:

You are not even old enough to drink yet. Just because MTV tells you to does not mean that you must take every available opportunity to 'shake that thing'. Clear?

Shaking my head in a very parental and judgmental way, I head over to the refreshments so that I won't look like an idiot if someone comes up to talk to me.

What is clearly just a cafeteria table wheeled into the gym and covered in a blue tablecloth has a pretty unvaried array of store bought brownies, some pizza, and a few two liter bottles of soda.

I don't drink soda when I can avoid it, but I suppose tonight I'll make an exception (not like I have a human body to ruin anymore, anyways).

I really thought that becoming a wood nymph would be more difficult, but here at the halfway point it's actually perfectly fine. I mean I have some weird moments, just ask Glen, but for the most part I don't feel much different unless I head out into the forest.

Did you know that wood nymph's mates actually have leaves instead of roots for hair? Mine is like little weeping willow branches. It's amazing.

Anyways.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Here it comes.

"Ms. Regence?!"

Theeeere it is.

"Why _hello_, Michael." Haha, Mike Newton. That is a child I won't miss next year.

"You're…uh…you're here."

"It's strange, isn't it?" He looks like a glorified penguin (actually, penguins have dignity), dressed in a tuxedo. Actually, I've never seen anyone attractive in a tux anyways.

"What?"

"Well, the fact is, Mr. Newton, that your teachers _do_ exist outside of school. Even more surprising," I lean down (I love being 5'9), place my hands on my knees condescendingly.

"We aren't actually made of baggy sweater material and term papers. Shocking, I know."

"What're you – um,"

"I am chaperoning, Mr. Newton, so if you'd kindly return to your date, whom I'm sure would enjoy your company far more than I."

"Oh." He says, taking an awkward step backwards before high-tailing it the heck out of here.

Take that.

With a shake of my head, I drift towards the door to the field. Wow, Coralline, even ten years later you're hiding outside.

Well, whatcha gonna do.

I take a step outside, the cool breeze whipping my bare legs and a damp drizzle coating the field grey, the thumping boom of the music still audible from where I am.

I walk down the little bit of concrete, my heels (why am I wearing heels?) clacking dankly. The good thing about how low the back of this dress goes is that I can feel the night air, and the ends of my hair, tickling my back.

Everything is tinted with night – you know what I mean. A little darker, a little bluer, a little more prone to mystery.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't ask, truthfully."

"Come on, man, dish! Is she really that uptight?"

"I do not understand your use of the word 'dish', but I find her personality to be of the regular…er, firmness."

"Wow, Ms. Regence's boyfriend is _boring_."

"Ms. Regence's boyfriend also happens to be able to kill you with a snap of his fingers and feed you with his resources of his own good will, so please stop provoking Ms. Regence's boyfriend because while he may be gracious and forgiving, Ms. Regence is not and can easily screw your life up massively if she hears you being so rude to her boyfriend again."

Emmett snaps to attention, turning around humbly to stare me in the face. Behind him, Glen – in very human, very male appearance, mouths 'thank you' and gives me a thumbs up.

"Did you just say that all in the third person?"

"Yes." He coughs, takes a step backwards. Rosalie, next to him, groans, closes her eyes and shakes her head.

She looks stunning in some type of red silk…uh, thing, that reaches down to her ankles.

Emmett is wearing a tuxedo. And looks like a penguin.

See? I told you nobody looks good in a tuxedo.

"Glen, why don't you go on inside and…mingle or something." He frowns, nods and heads inside. That…

THAT, I'll have to deal with later.

He, however, has chosen not to wear a tuxedo, and somehow looks like a cross between a skater boy and a modern Robin Hood.

"Emmett," I sigh, placing a hand on his over-muscled back and trying not to be demeaned by his height.

"I want you to realize something."

"You're turning into what he is."

I freeze. "Wait, what? How did you-"

He shrugs. "Lucky guess. Seemed like you two were dancing around it long enough. Hey, maybe you'll be a good example for Edward and Bella!"

"Where are they, anyway? I saw Alice on my way in." Very hard NOT to see her, actually, considering the electric blue _thing_ she'd been wearing. When she saw me, she said 'good for you, going for that pretty but reserved look'. Reserved? I'm wearing a dress. That's as out there as I go. Any farther and I'll just trip.

"Bella doesn't…er, do dances."

"Ah." I've generally gathered that she's, in polite words, a klutz. Wahaha. I am klutz no more. Me dryad. Almost.

Really, I have the urge to say 'I pawn all' or something. Well anyways.

"So are you teaching here next year?" I pause to think about it.

Will I? Seems like I'll have enough on my plate, learning how to deal in a forest. Glen says that his 'territory' stretches up the coast, through Canada to Alaska, extending a couple hundred miles inward. Or, as he describes it:

"The edge of Canada and all the fun little fiddly bits on the piece above it." Even thinking back on that I start giggling.

But I plan on maintaining a connection to the real world.

"Unless a better offer comes up." I answer after a moment.

XXX

"Cora! You have letters from companies and individuals printed on paper." Stifling a laugh, I crawl out of our perpetually warm bed.

After a couple nights, the faerie-palace stuff was getting ridiculous. Everything in the house was covered in little golden curlicues, and when murals started to paint themselves on the yellow-stone walls I told him to tone it down quite a lot.

So the result is that no matter how much furniture we (I) stuff into a room, there's never any less space, and that our bed is abnormally large and always the perfect temperature. Of course, only about half my nights are spent in it, the other half I stay out in the forest and 'acquaint myself'. I have to admit, that certainly does have its advantages as well – one being that I almost always wake up surrounded by little furry things and/or birds, newts, et cetera. Wolves, even (the REAL kind).

"Mail, Glenwood, it's called mail. We've been through this."

"Mail is what knights wore under armor."

I sigh, shrugging on a knit sweater and wrapping it around myself, my t shirt showing through the various holes its acquired.

Oh, other thing left over from the faerie palace effect: ridiculously soft white shag carpet. That never gets stained. I love you world.

I come up to the front door to see him, fully wood-nymph…ed (gotta find a good word for that), holding a stack of mail and observing each envelope before putting it at the back of the bundle he's grasped.

"This is…interesting…" He says when he holds up a rather plain white letter, staring at whatever is written on the front.

"What?" I hurry over, prying it from his hands.

"University of Alaska? What could they want with me?" I say it aloud, more to myself than anyone else, but Glen shrugs.

"Open it. Find out. I'm curious too, surprisingly." He comes up behind me, slides his arms around my waist and rests his chin on my shoulder.

"Eeh, nosy." I whine, but open the letter in front of him anyway.

_Dear Ms. Regence_…it begins, and I feel like I'm being addressed by a student.

"Add you to our prestigious staff? What does that mean? A staff as in a wizard's tool or as in a musical staff?"

"They mean the people that work for them, Glen. Professors."

"They want you to teach?"

I feel the beginning of an inevitable smile leak into my mouth, butterflies leaping and whirling themselves at the walls of my stomach only to fall to the ground like idiots and then, like even bigger idiots, get up and do it again.

"They want me to teach. Starting in September."

"This is good?"

Unable to contain myself, I turn around and slide my arms around his neck. I 'bark-over', finding it easier and easier to do. I don't have to think about it, just like you don't think about moving your leg or bending a finger, that's how easy.

I pull his face to mine, our lips moving together perfectly, and when I pull away that treacherous smile on my lips has spread to his.

"Yes. This is _very_ good."

--

A/N: Okay, so the college thing was not technically my idea. AnEclipseInBlack actually inspired that little 'wtf not again' moment.You like? You no like? I hope you like, because boy do I have a set of characters to introduce to you guys. Well, not so much a set as an amorphous blob of people.

Now gushing time (feel free to skip down to the dividing bar, hell I would):

I want to say how, well, bloody amazing it is that people have even bothered to read something I wrote. And I hate it when authors hold chapters for hostage, hoping to eek out a few more reviews in the process, and (I think?) I didn't actually do that, meaning that all those reviews were of everybody's free will. (Actually, I also hate it when authors gloat over reviews like they're pieces of candy and want as much as possible, so I'll shut up with that talk now).

And not only that you guys read something I wrote, but the fact that _what_ I wrote wasn't about Bella getting pregnant, or Edward having not returned for X years and Bella being turned by someone else, or an alternate universe where the two meet and fall in love again, or something like that. I'll be honest, I have read some of those and liked them very, very much, but the simple fact of the matter is that a lot of those are done – and for good reason, too. And they yield good results, plenty of views and reviews, at least what I've seen. My little pet peeve has become that when an original character is introduced, peoples' interest plummets. I mean heck, even on this story – by chapter three (where Glen was introduced), most people stopped reading. But you guys didn't and for that you are AWESOME. You've proved to me that a plot line can be pretty bloody different from the norm (evil mutant robot vampire bears, anyone?), but still people will read it, and that amazes me to AND from the moon. I would name names of people who've reviewed and/or added me to alerts, but I'd be afraid to forget someone.

Actually, to those of you who've alerted but aren't reviewing at all: 's cool, man. I get the feeling. You add it to alerts but don't feel like reviewing, or just plain don't review ever, and by the time you might have something to say you feel like it's stretched on too long…yeah, that happens to me all the time (or maybe I'm the only one, I dunno). So yeah.

--

ER. That was way too long and I apologize, so now onto more important matters:

I need someone, or (more likely) several someones to help me with detail-y-ness for the sequel, i.e. I can't remember a name/date/place/character attribute/whatever about the book, I can just PM that person(s) and get that info. A good amount of it will be about the Volturi and the lore of the vampires in the books, in case you need an idea. So, help please?

ARGH. The end. –is sad now-

Wahaha, until the prequel then the sequel, folks.


	32. Corwood Oneshots

Corwood Oneshots!

This is basically just, er, skipping to all the 'defining moments' for them, since as far as I can tell people kind of want to know. So, no, there are no recognizable Twilight characters here. Aw, shucks, guys, they're all like eight years old (or not in Forks coughvampirescough) right now!

Lettuce start off with the ones you already know:

--

You know the immediate issue with transferring schools? You have to go to this horrible hospital and get all these check ups. Because all kids from Canada have rabies, right? Seriously.

I sit on my hands, my legs kicking back and forth on the waiting bench impatiently while I people watch. I always had a knack for people watching – I can figure a lot of things out just by watching someone for a few minutes.

But what good does that do me, if no one can see me?

Whenever I'm alone, just waiting for something, I always feel out of place. Like nobody will come for me because it would take such a massively coincidental chain of events in the universe for that to happen.

I've always hated hospitals. Not because of the sick people – but because it's so blank. So sanitary and stuff.

But no one ever even thinks to give me a second thought or a glance or anything, you know? Just keep passing by the little hippie teen. She belongs outside anyway.

So I can't keep the little plaintive voice in my head from begging:

Notice me.

The little girl without a heart.

Somebody notice me.

"Coralline Regence?" Calls a man who cannot possibly be a doctor. And intern, maybe, but he's completely gorgeous. I mean he's pale as hell, but Washington isn't really much farther south than Canada, so I guess that's pretty normal. But he's like mid-to-early twenties. No way is that guy going near me with a needle. I don't give a shit about his credentials.

"Coralinne Regence?" He tried a different pronunciation of my name.

Jeez, you don't have to say it fifty billion times. I'm COMING.

"Hi." I say shyly, standing up and dusting off my skirt.

I guess my clothing wouldn't really be considered, like, normal. I mean dude, fuck Abercrombie and Bitch. I'm just wearing a green peasant skirt, and a skater t-shirt: you know, white long sleeve under, blue short-sleeve over. It's really baggy, though.

So yeah, I don't really match, but whatever. It's not like I'm trying to impress Mr. Intern who's probably practiced on an orange dozens of times so I shouldn't worry! Puh-lease.

"Hello, Ms. Regence."

"Cora."

"Hello, Cora. It's nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Cullen."

"Doctor?" I ask as he leads me to a treatment room.

"Yes."

"But, you're like…you look like twenty three." He smiles dazzlingly, shaking his head.

"I guess I just have a perpetually young face, huh, Cora?"

"Sucks for you." He laughs, taking me into a blank white room that smells like disinfectant and ammonia.

I really miss the forest right now. It's like, who needs friends when you've got autotrophs? I know this sounds completely loony, but when I'm in it I feel like it's…listening to me. Alright, that came out much more disconcerting than it was supposed to.

Just before he closes the door, he's interrupted by a beautiful, yet motherly, figure, speaking to him in hushed tones.

I don't bother to listen to what they're saying, but the fact that the door is held open for a few more seconds helps me see.

A guy, he can't be a lot older than I am, with golden skin and dusty brown hair.

He walks right on past the room without another glance, eyes intent on something directly in front of him, probably the exit. He seems to hate hospitals almost as much as I do.

So I'm kind of disappointed that he just walked right on past.

Notice me.

See me.

Find me.

Single me out.

Somebody, please.

As if in answer to my prayers, the guy suddenly backtracks, freezing in front of my door. He stares at me, his mouth agape just slightly, his gaze heated and intense. I feel my heart leap up into my throat. He's shocked by something, intrigued, like I'm a long lost loved one he never thought he'd see again.

And even though I know he can't hear me, and even if he could he wouldn't understand, I mouth the words:

Thank you.

XXX

"HELP!" I screeched, running at a speed that'd impress and Olympic sprinter down to the beach.

"Someone! He's drowning!" I saw a body, a vaguely human-shaped body, floating like driftwood in the waves.

I pulled him, by the arm, up onto the damp sand. It seemed as though all of the blood had drained from his face, the life had seeped out of him in equilibrium with the ocean.

Desperately, I grabbed my sweatshirt – I don't know what strange instinct told me to dry him off instead of attempt CPR, but I did anyway – and started to towel him off.

He seemed vaguely familiar, not in the sense of an intimate friend from years ago but in the sense of someone you'd seen just last week in a parking garage, whose name you didn't know but who you smiled and waved at anyway just to be friendly.

He wore only black pants of an unknown cloth, and his bare chest was annoyingly muscular.

"Wake up," I pleaded, drying him off. I didn't know what I would do with myself if this stranger had died on my hands.

"Wake up."

His eyes flew open just then, not nearly long enough for dramatic pressure to build, and stared at me strangely. Almost…in shock.

"Oh, gosh! Are you alright? Do you need me to call an ambulance?"

"No."

That was all that he said to me before disappearing into the forest.

XXX

Gosh, I always hated school dances. I don't know why my mom even made me come. Okay, rephrase: my mom didn't make me come, but I said I'd go with that guy that asked me out – Dan or something? And she said that if I told him I would, I was obligated to. So why on earth did I agree?

I snort, shaking my head and banging it against the palm of my hand.

I look like complete shit, probably. Don't get me wrong, the dress is beautiful. A bell bottom – does that term apply to dresses? Well, it does now – it flares out just past my knees, trailing out a little in the back. Further up it is loose, draping over all the right places, and wrist-length sleeves make it look like something out of a fairy tale.

I'm hiding, temporarily, in the shelter that is the field just outside, hoping that Dan doesn't find me. He went to the bathroom, and I ran away. It's silly, isn't it? That I'm trying especially hard to be closer to the forest at every available moment, even though that guy – the rude one that ran away after I saved his frickin' life – was found in the ocean. Why should I look for him in the forest? Especially since he probably did go to the hospital, was picked up by his family and is now back in Seattle or something. I just want to pretend.

"Coralline! There you are! Watchya doin' out here, sweetpea?"

I smile weakly. "I don't know. I guess I got lost. I'm still kind of new." I tell Dan, who is really quite a handsome boy if you go for that sort of thing, as he hurries across the grass towards me, smiling.

"That's alright. Come on, let's get you back inside before you freeze to death."

"It's nearly forty five degrees out here, I doubt I'll freeze." I snort.

He laughs, a booming sound. "I keep forgetting. You Canadians are tough!"

"Some of us are." I want to tell him not to stereotype, but it wouldn't do any good. Besides, that would be needlessly judgmental.

"Hey! I love this song! Wanna dance?"

I refuse to believe that he loves this slow, romantic-type music, but clearly he just wants out on the dance floor. Probably to dance with that girl he's been eyeing all night. At least, I hope he's eyeing her, because I don't particularly feel like being eyed.

"Sure." I say, halfheartedly draping my arms around his neck as he places his hands on my hips, dragging me directly into the seeming thousands – nay, millions! – of swaying couples, spinning in dizzy circles together.

Sleepy, I watch them all move as one like a mid-twentieth century musical number, spinning counterclockwise. All the boys in tuxedoes, all the girls in pale dresses. They seem content, with their people, even if they weren't built for each other. Why am I not?

In fact, they all seem hauntingly alike. Not in appearance, but the fact that no teenage dance is this organized. They seem to all move at once, mindlessly, not quite knowing their own actions, even Dan. Not me?

Silently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, Dan slides his hands away from my hips and turns around to a new dance partner, as does everyone else. Another boy slips in.

He places, shyly, one hand on my waist, the other grasping my own.

"I hope you don't mind. But you didn't quite look like you were enjoying yourself."

A tiny gasp escapes my mouth. Him. Even more beautiful conscious, all sharp features and gentle eyes, golden brown hair falling gracefully around his head.

"I just felt that my response to your deed the other day was…improper. And I apologize for my dress, but I couldn't quite find anything appropriate." He smiles and my heart skips a beat.

He is dressed a bit…outlandishly, but it seems to fit my own garb perfectly. A brown vest, leather or suede? With an old-fashioned collar, it is buttoned over a loose white shirt with slightly billowed sleeves. The only words that could come to mind might be stable boy, but that doesn't quite do it justice. I feel like it's early seventeenth century England.

And with a start, I realize that's just about where we are. Or at least, it feels like that. Gone are the garish booty-bumps and hormonal teenage make-out sessions in the corner, instead everyone in the background melting together to form sort of a frame around us, create scenery.

"Do you mind terribly?" He asks, reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of my face.

In shock, I shake my head, shivering openly as his fingertips brush my skin.

I don't know what's playing in the background, but it sounds like baroque music. Greensleeves? Is that even baroque?

"Oh," I whimper as his hand slides back down to grasp my waist. My arm tightens around his shoulder.

"Do me a favor, Coralline?" Not bothering to wonder how he knows my name, or even what the favor is, I nod dumbly, our face an unbearable few inches apart.

He closes the distance just slightly, our noses almost touching. Foreign tingles strike me, right down to my very toes. My first kiss?

"Please tell Dan to find a new permanent dance partner."

"Why?" I squeak.

"Because, I'm afraid his current one," he smiles slyly, brushing our noses together and causing me to temporarily stop breathing, "is quite taken."

XXX

You remember them now? Good, good. Okay, now some new stuff.

XXX

"A monocyte is what, class? Come on guys, you remember. We went over this on Friday."

An awkward squeaking of seats as everyone tries to get out of Miss Polobit's laser beam eyes.

I can't stop thinking about it. No matter what I do. Besides, I don't need to pay attention in class anymore, school's over in a few weeks.

And a monocyte is a cell in the immune system, it's a type of leukocyte.

But he was so…well he wasn't quite…human, was he? No don't get me wrong, he was human in all the right physical ways, but the way he walked and spoke and carried himself. It was more graceful than seems possible.

I still can't stop thinking about it. Clear brown eyes and golden skin. I don't even know his name and I can't stop thinking about him.

This is ridiculous. I don't _swoon_ over anyone, ever. I despise celebrities, I've never been able to enjoy those scenes in movies where muscle guys aren't wearing shirts (in fact, they gross me out), so why do I keep thinking about him?

Because I don't quite understand him. And I've always loved a mystery. I guess deep down even I've been waiting to be swept off my feet. Just told myself I didn't want to be because I'd assumed it wouldn't happen.

He's…he's giving me things. At least, I assume it's him. I walk outside in the morning and right there on my lawn: boom, snowbells, covering everything. It was a sea of little azure stars, stirring in the slightest breeze, interrupted softly by the walkway. What human would do that?

None. No humans.

Did I just think that? What are you suggesting, Cora?

"Coralline! Perhaps you'd like to answer, as clearly you have enough spare thought to doodle all over your notebook." Huh?

"It's a type of leukocyte, m'am, part of the immune system that restores macrophages and dendritic cells."

She scowls but, satisfied, heads back up to the front of the classroom.

What did she mean doodle?

I look down and, lo and behold, there on my binder divider is a drawing of such skill and imagination that I can't believe that I drew it.

A dryad (see? I pay attention in myth studies) is crouched on the branch of his oak tree, a slim and elfish body perched, balancing himself with arms on either side of his bent legs. Slightly pointed ears and sharp features add to his inhumanly beautiful appearance, and little marks and etches I unwittingly added to his face made him almost look covered in bark.

Looks just like him. _Just_ like him.

XXX

A/N: Yay, foreshadowing! Now let's skip to the reveal!

XXX

"Cora…" He smiles, taking a step back.

"Yes?"

"I'd like to show you something now."

I tense, a little bit excited. "What?"

"Don't be afraid."

Afraid? In this forest? I almost laugh out loud. Leaning up against an oak tree and inhaling the new-spring smell, the little leaves still wrinkled and expanding as they emerge from their branches. Everything is yellow and green. I'm not sure anything could scare me when I'm here.

"Okay." I say, trying to hold back a little smile.

One thing I've discovered in the last month: I have a crush on him. A massive, gigantic, enormous crush on him. It's harmless, really, because the feeling obviously isn't mutual (I've nicknamed him Captain Nothing-Below-The-Belt, just not to his face), but it doesn't change the fact. Heck, he probably doesn't even think of me as a friend, just doing me a favor by spending time with me after I saved his life.

So I don't know what to do when he picks up his shirt and slides it over his head, dropping on the floor of the forest to reveal a perfect chest.

Uhm…

Not helping with the crush here, buddy, but you are making me considerably more shallow. Dear God.

With a little gasp, I take a step back, and his face immediately takes on an expression of utter dismay.

"No, sorry, I'm not…what did you want to show me?" He relaxes slightly, even though I can't. Just the way his pants rest on his hips like that…

Oh, I can't wait to not be a teenager anymore.

"Don't be afraid." He repeats, closing his eyes.

Well, I will be afraid if he starts doing air guitar right here, but other than that…

But my heart literally stops when his whole body, face, hair, torso, legs, arms, bark creeps up and over it like he's the tree, and it hugs every curve and line of his body. I don't know if he thought I'd be scared of this. I'm ecstatic.

Again, though, really not helping with the crush here. He's beautiful.

He's gorgeous. Amazing. Mesmerizing. Magical. He's…he looks..

Just like my drawing. Exactly like…like my…

"Oh, god, you're a dryad." I whisper. And, meeting me with golden-copper eyes that make my heart leap straight out of my chest and into my throat, he smiles a dazzling smile.

"I am indeed."

"So…so is…is this…your tree?" I motion to the one I'm leaning on.

He frowns. "They are all my trees. We are not attached to one tree as in myths. But this area, this space that stretches far along this coast, it is my territory, my charge. The area I have been deemed worthy to keep safe."

Cautiously, I take a step forward. When a shy little grin lights on his face, I take a few more until I'm right in front of him. I take in the sight, this close it's even easier to see his complete, detailed perfection, making my stomach leap in all sorts of strange directions.

Fearfully, afraid only of disgust or rejection on his part, I reach out with one hand to place it on his chest, trailing my fingers down his skin. He thinks it's curiosity, let him think that. He doesn't need to know the wonder I hold him in.

"Why, you're a regular old tree man, aren't you?"

He laughs. "That I am, Coralline. That I am."

XXX

A/N: Heh. A regular old tree man who's going to have to wait ten years, three of them while she moves away, then deal with her psycho boyfriend before she finally figures out what took him a day and a half to realize. Oh, piteous Glenwood, at least you'll always have chapter 30 (and that picture on my profile. Seriously guys, check it out, not kidding you. Third link. It'll make you happy! Bonus points if you mention it.)

XXX

A/N: Background info for what's happening because I don't want all this to turn into another whole story: she's known all about the tree-man thing for about three-ish months now, and is at the moment camping out in the forest (it's August), getting mauled by a bear. Wow, that latter part was kind of an ambuscade, wasn't it?

--

"Help! SOMEBODY HELP!" I cry, my voice echoing through the empty forest, as if my sound waves were tangible beings flitting and bouncing between every tree.

The thing gives out a great and terrible roar, taking another step towards me. I don't have food, you beast! Nothing here! No candy bars or pasta! I did nothing to attract it and yet this huge brown monster is lumbering towards me, its trunk-like legs propelled onward seemingly by pure loathsome horror alone. My screams serve only to seemingly provoke it, spurring its motion.

Monster. That's the only word. The thing cannot possibly be native.

_Monster_. The thought seems to resonate tauntingly in my mind, leaking into the real world.

_Monster._

It reaches me with a horrid screech, the warm breath from it's mouth threatening to scorch my face. I see, this near, its teeth: draped with the rotting stench of deceased bodies and detritus, a hot stink and maroon bits of flesh causing me to gag before I pass out.

xxx(lowercase Xs mean it's the same scene)

"Coralline. Shh. Try not to move." Glen whispers, crouched next to me in the field. Moonlight paints his face blue, features both softened and sharpened by angular shadows. Gentle hands caress my head, cradling me in his lap.

"You've broken your arm. I'm going to heal it. It may hurt, I haven't done this for quite a while. Please try not to scream."

Oh God, why would I want to scream?

A sharp pain washes over the dull, thudding one that I feel in my arm, a scream of protest like a thousand and one needles piercing my flesh in all directions.

"There. Thank you, you took that quite well." What? I'm still barely conscious, suffering an onslaught of throbbing, pulsing hurt as soon as I woke up and unsure why.

"What…happened?" I mutter, trying to blink the fatigue out of my eyes.

"You were attacked. There won't be…any scarring on your arm. But I'm afraid the one on your stomach will always be there."

"My-" I sit up suddenly, bumping my head on his chin (oops), yanking up my shirt to see my abdomen.

On my right side, a long, shallow silver scar has been etched from my hip to my bellybutton, almost like a tattoo.

"The…bear, it…"

"Yes." Pursing my lips, I turn around a little to look at him, my sleeping bag rustling restlessly.

His expression is as pained as I'm sure mine was a minute ago. What a strange thought, that this should happen in the place I feel safest. In the forest, my forest, the one in which I hide and play with my guitar or walk on paths that only Glenwood and I can see, turning over logs to look for the small little wriggly things that hide from the sunlight.

"I would have died without you." I murmur, placing a hand on his cheek.

He closes his eyes, dark lashes starkly contrasting against the bark of his skin, slim nose and pointed chin tilted downwards.

"Please," he whispers. "Please, don't say that."

So I don't say anything. I observe his face for a few quick seconds before leaning in, pressing my lips to his cheek in a quiet thank-you. He feels warm beneath me.

When I pull away, he hasn't moved at all, every muscle in the same position.

When he opens his eyes, they glow copper. It's like an art photo, where everything is tinted one color except for one thing. His eyes, it's almost like they burn when he looks at me.

He looks so…inhuman now. A true faerie being.

"Thank you."

XXX

A/N: Okay, you have no idea how tempting it was to add a little kiss in there, but luckily I swerved it to the left a little instead of on the lips. Oh well. Naiad time!

XXX

"Where are we going?"

"I want you to meet some people. Well, beings."

"Who?" I grumble, trying not to trip as we make our way towards the beach, him striding onwards in front of me obliviously. I guess wood nymphs aren't too well versed in chivalry.

"You'll see. There are a lot of water beings, but I want you to remember which to steer clear of."

"So there are harmless ones?"

He snorts. "There are ones that are essentially dolphin-like water fairies in behavior if not appearance, whose idea of fun is…casual sex." Ew. "They are very playful, but on land they eat human food and in the water eat small fish and planktonic blooms. They are harmless, if…mildly irritating. But I'd like you to meet…see…the ones that you should know to always avoid."

"Oh," I whisper. I know it's meant to be scary, but I can't help but imagine mermaids.

"They call themselves the daughters of Poseidon." He spits, clearly disgusted.

I see only his back, but he turns around to retrieve me. "I apologize. I haven't spent much time in human company for quite a while." He laughs, placing a hand on my back as we walk the last few yards to the ocean even-paced.

"They aren't?" He snorts. "They could be, but I seriously doubt it. For one thing, Poseidon does not exist. For another, they are cruel creatures. Sirens, really."

"Sirens as in sing-you-a-song-then-trap-you-forever sirens?" He glances at me.

"They seduce humans and drown them."

I freeze.

All I manage in response is a weak "Oh."

Surveying me carefully, he turns to look me in the eye. "Are you going to be alright?"

Still a little in shock, trying not to absorb the words, I consider it.

No way am I losing the chance to meet mermaids.

"I'll be fine."

The cautious smile on his face snaps back to firm apathy, and he turns toward the black water. He looks ready to chant or something.

"You can come out now. Don't try anything, any of you."

How many are there? I wonder what you call a group of mermaids. A pod? A flock? A school?

With a soft glurp, like an inverse splash, and I see one raise her head above the water.

She's entirely black, but a natural black. Not natural like damp soil or ebony wood or onyx, not a comforting black of earth, but the black that happens when you've rubbed away the silver plating on a fork. The black that forms when a school of dark herring passes directly below the water, and you're watching from high above like in a plane. That dark, moving mass of melting togetherness, hidden. It's that kind of black.

And her hair – well, hair is one word for it. Have you ever seen a sea slug, with gills outside its body? Like orange cylinders, waving in the current. She has those, each nearly an inch in thickness, and a blinding orange in color. And eyes, pupil-less, a milky yellow in color.

A murder. You would call a group of Poseidon's daughters a murder.

More of them appear, each with slight variations in appearance: this one's gills are more red in color, this one has blue eyes. But in build and radiant malice they're all the same, achingly beautiful creatures.

"Hello, sweetheart," says the first one softly with a sincere smile. An almost sincere smile.

"Hello." I reply coldly.

With a hiss, she backs away a bit, tut-tutting. "Such cold tone, poppet! What did we do to you?"

"Nothing. Pleased to meet you." I say, my voice icy.

"Oh, but now you've hurt my feelings." She whispers, swimming closer. I can almost see her sinuous body beneath the darkening waves, undulating back and forth like a true fish, not a whale's vertical motion. I see her caudal fin, like black lace, a translucent bat's wing, the membrane stretched between spines. The tail snaps, folding into a point and then rapidly expanding again, and before I realize it I'm staring deep into her pale honey eyes.

"Would you like to make it up to me?" She asks, our faces close. Without waiting for an answer, or perhaps to provoke one, she slides a long, elegant hand – as black and smooth as her face and torso – with the same lacy black membrane stretched between the fingers, sliding her wet palm up to meet my foot.

"No." I say, my tone void of emotion, jerking my foot back.

With a growl, her eyes flash red and she retreats to the rest of her sisters.

"Oh, you can't believe everything _he_ tells you!" she spits. "Wood nymphs. Lousy creatures."

Next to me, Glenwood tenses, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me to him.

He says nothing.

"They lie all the time. It's like breathing for them, you know," she whispers, venturing closer.

"Glen," I mutter, leaning further into him and taking a step back. "I think I might be ready to go back now."

He looks at me, a puzzling smile forming on his lips. "You don't want to go with her? You don't have the slightest urge at all?"

"No." I frown. Of course not. She's beautiful but I'm not stupid.

He laughs, silver bells lighting the air with white fire, grabbing me up in a hug.

"You don't want to go with her! Oh, Cora. Oh, Cora, you have no idea what this means but it's very good. Very good."

"It is?" I ask, confused. He pulls away from the hug just enough to look me in the face, the heartbeat of the world slowing. His hand moves to the back of my neck, and at this point I honestly wouldn't mind if he made a move on me. But he just smiles and says:

"Yes."

XXX

A/N: Okay, for those of you who don't get it, which I feel fairly certain is the great majority…(keep in mind I'm making up my own folklore here): wood nymphs wield a certain amount of protection over their 'special people'. So Glenwood knew for sure (even though he was already pretty much completely sure) that Cora was his 'special person' when the siren's power didn't work on her, meaning his protection was having an affect. Mmkay. –surveys bored and disbelieving faces-

SHUT UP! I needed to have this scene! If you've got a problem you can just DEAL WITH IT!

XXX

Alright-y folks. So before I go on a…week, maybe two-week long hiatus (maybe shorter if I change my mind), I thought I'd give you a little preview of what's to come.

XXX

(er, just to clarify, this is no longer happy flashback fun time explosion)

"Yes – yes, mother, Alaska. You know, the state next to Canada? Listen, I just thought I should tell you – a job, mom, I got offered a job at University of Alaska. No, not tenure, mother, they aren't idiots. W- I di- mom! They sought me out, isn't that enough? Nobody gets offered tenure sight unseen, I haven't even begun teaching – no, mother. I'm not moving for a boy – a _boy_, mom? You make me sound sixteen years old!" I groan, my grip on the phone tightening.

"Mom. Mom, I'll call you when I get to the hotel. No, look, I'm still looking for an apart- well yes, _mother_, it so happens that I am seeing someone, but the simple fact is that you live in two entirely different hemispheres from us and so you'll just have to get to know each other by email. Mom? Mom, I'm leaving the airport now. I have to go. _Goodbye_, mother." With a huff, I snap the phone shut and stick it into my jeans pocket.

So glad that woman lives in Thailand now. Her and her 'cultural experience' talk. Telling me not to settle down too soon. A bit late for that, mother dear! But, oh, I guess I might as well just UN-become a dryad, just to make you happy. Good luck with that one, Coralline.

Glenwood says we don't have to worry about the clan of Denali vampires – they rarely hunt this near the coast, so our forest should be relatively stress-free.

Stress free? Really? With a pair of wood nymphs, one of which is still mostly human? And the fact that, according to Alice (please, someone remind me why I let my student get her hands on my phone), Bella Swan is now officially Bella Cullen, deceased according to natural law?

I highly doubt that having to deal with a newborn vampire in our territory things will be 'stress free'. Dear Lord, and I don't even know where they're going now. Hopefully Edward the Wonder Boyfriend got her into Harvard or some other Ivy League college far, far away from the West Coast. As long as the newborn is out of mine and Glen's territory, she's not our responsibility. Yeah. Okay. I'll just go ahead and say that they went to Princeton. Though with my luck, they're all attending University of Alaska! Boy, would that be karma.

Alright, now that the idea's in my head I'm a little frightened. Joke, joke, it's a joke.

Just keep telling yourself that, Cora. Yeah.

My mantra as of late has been, in a phrase: 'no more vampire students, no more vampire students, no more vampire students', et cetera.

Don't get me wrong – last year was amusing. My last-block elective, mythological studies, had about a 35 percent vampire population: Rosalie, Emmett, Edward, Alice. Not Jasper, for a reason I discovered in much more dire circumstances which don't deserve to be revisited. And all that was while I was still human, unfortunately, as being the 'master of the monsters' little miss Responsible Wood Nymph wields a certain amount of power, namely being enough strength to overpower vampires or werewolves. Yay. Go dryads.

But now I've officially finished 'turning', or however one would put it because by absolutely no means am I becoming another vampire, and so the real work begins. In both senses. For one, I'm teaching at a college as opposed to a high school now, and for…two (never mind), I'm learning just how far the wood nymph net stretches. And of course, there's that whole thing about children.

What about children, you ask? Long story. But the short summary is that one of the female wood nymphs was killed, and in order to reincarnate her soul into a suitable body, we need to…well, make one. So I need to have a wood nymph baby that will be the reincarnated soul of a hundred thousand year old tree entity, and raise her until she's old enough to go back to her anxiously waiting mate. Unfortunately, Glenwood says that a reincarnated tree spirit's early years are the ones during which it is most prone to danger.

Wow, my life is completely ridiculous. Ridiculous, I tell you.

I sigh, running a hand casually through my hair – darn, it's curled again. Whatever.

With a mildly pissed groan, I pick up my bag and head for the forest. Okay, so maybe I lied about the hotel. Maybe I found another cabin in the woods. What's it to you?

The woods up here feel strangely familiar, though I've never been to Alaska in my life before. I suppose the familiarity isn't so very strange, really. It is…well, this forest…we own each other, kind of. Traditionally, according to Greek myth, dryads were attached to specific trees, some so much that if that tree were destroyed, they were too. With us, it's more that we're attached to all of the woods in our area.

I hitch my suitcase over my shoulder, the weight barely registering as I haven't brought very much – just some clothing and my laptop. Needles litter the forest floor, pine trees and conifers stretching and bending and twisting above me in a deep emerald latticework of leaves and branches in an attempt to absorb every ounce of sunlight that reaches them, not that the sun shines often here.

I chuckle, and with an instinctive brain signal like a flick of muscle, I tree-form. Bark, for me as smooth and tan as a princess-tree, covers my body – I doubt I'll ever compare to Glenwood barked-over, but I happen to think it looks pretty gosh darned cool. He, being an original wood nymph and not the 'recruited' mate of one, has a thin layer of bark covering his entire body, hugging every muscular and elven curve, a neat curve of thick, tapering roots on his head. I get willow branches. Anyways.

"_Glenwood, so named because the area in which his central territory eventually became the town known as Glenwood, is a…well, there are a few names for it. Tree sprite, wood nymph, forest spirit. He's been called just about everything under the sun, and more._

_Making his default form rather different from that which you would expect. Imagine a body, well muscled but not overly so. Now imagine it covered with maple tree bark about half an inch think, allowing still for the shape of the body to show through his heavily armored skin. It covers his face as well, though not as roughly – more like a beech tree, smooth and thin allowing for all facial expressions to be made without difficulty._

_And my favorite part: from his head, undulating backwards nearly a foot, are several thick roots. The shape of carrots almost, with graceful tapering curves that result in them meeting at a point that dips down, almost like tentacles. Just less slimy."_

He says that soon we'll have to go to Italy, make my presence known at one of the wood nymph gatherings – which, if Glen's sub-par description technique is to be followed, is really more like a convention in which all the dryads, from all over the world – males, females, Africans, Americans, Asians, Australians, Europeans – get together once every few decades and exchange news, possible problems. And in order to conveniently remind the Volturi that there are bigger things than them out there. They can play vampire police, but in the end we're the 'big bosses'. It feels strange, being a part of that. Oddly…exhilarating. Sort of a 'nyah nyah, my husband/boyfriend/whatever has ninety seven thousand years on all of you' complex. My my.

And I'll have absolutely no idea how to deal with college age children. Adults, technically. I'm teaching a veritable shmorgas board of myth classes – myth literature, popular fantasy/urban fantasy, historical mythology…

My God, and I'm the type of person that really does value 'alone time'. I guess that just flew out the window on pretentious gossamer wings.

University of Alaska, here I come.

XXX

A/N: Wow, that was my longest ever update. over 6500 words. So, good start or horrible and offensive and puke-inducing start? I'm trying to have that be the first part of the first chapter, sort of a this-is-the-part-that-gets-the-explaining-out-of-the-way-hurriedly-and-awkwardly prologue. Be honest, is it boring and terrible and if you hadn't read the first one would you have dropped it like a hot potato after the first paragraph? I don't want it to be one of those oh-you-have-to-read-the-first-one things, just a hey-if-you-happen-to-like-it-but-are-a-tad-confused-or-just-want-the-back-story-explained-there's-a-first-one things. –gulp-

Here goes nothing!

One last thing: did you look at the picture? LOOK AT THE BLOODY PICTURE. Please?


	33. Grownups Never Understand Anything

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."  
- **Antoine de Saint-Exupery**, _"The Little Prince"_

* * *

A/N: Oh my goodness. Do not ask me why I have the barefaced stupidity to submit this. I mean, I tried rereading this story, I really did, but it's beyond repair. Look at it. Look at that grammar. It hurts me inside.

I kind of wanted to see if anyone in the world would bother clicking on the link. I know how I'd react:

(click. refresh.)

"Uh...did I _ever_ subscribe to this story? Seriously? I'm so over this fandom." (click.)

"Wow. Chapter one is terrible." (click.)

"Why is this person updating after leaving this decaying carcass alone for like a year? Why has the writing style COMPLETELY CHANGED?"

Soyeahlolhaiguyswhat'sup.

* * *

When Glen saw a little girl with long shiny curls sitting alone on the forest floor, he did not panic and call the police.

For one, it's very hard for anything tree-based to panic.

For another, he didn't actually know what police were, despite the concept having been explained to him by his patient wife.

So, in typical tree spirit fashion, he leapt from limb to limb of his oaks until he was almost right above the shiny little nest of bronze hair – and it _was_ bronze, too. Almost metallic, was what it was. It did not look natural in his forest, but he didn't really care.

So, in typical tree spirit fashion, he jumped down off of the tree to land in a graceful little tree spirit crouch right next to her.

The little girl was playing with discarded sticks and dried up leaves on the floor. She'd already made a little hut, balanced precariously on a pile of pebbles.

"Hello," he said to her, very softly.

She was peeling the bark off of another twig; black dirt was caked underneath her little-girl fingernails. "Hello," she said in a very high-pitched voice. She didn't look up.

He wasn't stupid; he knew what she was. He'd seen more than a few halfies in his time. Not for a while, which was saying something for him, but it was something you could smell out. He had a pretty good guess as to where she was from, too. Of course, he didn't tell her that.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"I'm building a tree house," she replied brightly, pointing to the little hut covered in leaves. "See?"

"Yes," he said. "I do see." He was silent for a short while. He watched her tiny, pale, chubby fingers working at peeling the bark off of the stick like a tiny, pale, chubby spider with tiny, pale, chubby legs. She was very systematic – peel off a long strip here, tear it off, then go for the strip next to it, and when you'd gotten all the way around you started on the next level down.

"It's a very small house," he remarked finally.

"Yeah," she agreed. "That's why I'm making really little people for it." Again without looking up, she pointed to a little pile of peeled sticks with pieces of grass tied around them for arms, and balled up green leaves stuck on top for heads.

"Ah," he said.

And then, after another short while, "What's your name?"

"Mommy said not to talk to strangers," she chirped curtly, which was an odd combination.

Momentarily puzzled by this, he tilted his head to the side and frowned. "Ah," he said again. "Well, I'm Glenwood, and I'm the dryad…in charge of this forest."

Was "in charge" the thing you used there? He didn't remember.

She looked up at him, finally, and he was met with sharp and clear eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows disbelievingly.

He laughed, because he reminded her of someone. And leaned forward.

There was a quick motion, he grabbed a handful of dirt with one hand and with a little flick of his wrist, which was really just for show, he offered her the freshest white daisy in the world.

She took it, the stem of it in her hand, and shook off the leftover dirt on the roots, which were slowing down but still growing.

She blinked a few times. "Wow," she said reluctantly, looking at it. "Wow," she said again.

"Now will you tell me your name?"

She nodded.

"I'm Matilda," she lied, because she'd seen it in a movie and she liked that name better than hers.

This was obvious to Glenwood, who had seen people lie many times and knew the good ones from the bad ones. This girl, he got the feeling, did not lie often. She put the flower next to her little hut.

She finished peeling the stick she had and set about looking for another, patting the ground around her and craning her neck. There weren't any, but she didn't know that yet. Just when she was beginning to be frustrated,

_shoop!_

A tiny stalk shot up from the ground, about a foot in height, with little bright green maple leaves just sprouting from the top. Glen snapped it from its tiny trunk easily and handed it to her. She took it gratefully, if a little angrily (_she_ was supposed to find the stick).

Glenwood was glad that plants couldn't feel physical pain, and not for the first time. It sure looked cool, but making something grow up that fast when it usually took so much longer was painful. Being stretched too quickly, expected to function like any other thing of the same size, it was painful.

He looked at "Matilda" again. He had heard about the little vampire baby not two years ago.

Now, Glen wasn't stupid.

"Matilda," he said, placating her, "Don't you think your mommy and daddy will be worried if they don't know where you are?" His voice was very soft, like bells like the hum of velvet like warm sunlight, and she looked up at him again with her bright clear eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "They're always worried about something and me."

"That just means they love you," he told her, smiling an angelic smile and moving closer, just a little. "I worry about my son all the time, because I don't want anything to happen to him."

She pouted, but didn't say anything else.

So he contentedly watched the little almost-vampire-girl, who was growing up too quickly, as she peeled the bark off of a twig and hummed to herself.

When his wife walked out from between the trees, wearing jeans and a very dirty white t shirt, they made eye contact quickly. She raised her eyebrows, and he smiled at her while "Matilda" made another tiny stick person. He jerked his head in the direction of her parents, who, he suspected, were fretting since they'd lost all scent of their precious little sheltered little daughter.

He wondered what their rationale was. A girl could be sharper than a magpie, but it was wasted if they never let her know anything, wasn't it? She barely knew how to interact with other people through words.

Little Renesmee spoke through pictures and didn't like out-loud-words, and everyone she'd met liked her, and even Glen knew that that could ruin a perfectly good personality.

Cora nodded and smiled back at him, heading back in that direction. She'd be back with them in a few minutes.

"How old are you, Matilda?" he asked her.

"Dad says I'm almost nine," she replied. "I mean, he says that's how tall I am."

"Really?" Glen smiled and started to play with a dead leaf on the ground, _crinkle smoosh snap crush discard_. "My son is about as tall as you are."

Which was saying effectively nothing, because Tarrow was barely three. The thing about trees, was that they grew up before they grew out, because that was the only way to reach sunlight in a forest. You got old as _fast fast fast_ and you could, and then you could get the experience that made you a real person.

Poor "Matilda."

"How old is he?" she quipped, looking up and frowning again.

"Oh, about the same age, I expect," Glenwood replied, which was about accurate. Tarrow looked almost nine. Skinny as a beanstalk.

"Do you follow him around everywhere?"

"No. He likes to be alone a lot, and I know there's nothing that can hurt him, so I leave him alone sometimes." Which was true. He was a very solitary little boy. And he was a very sweet little boy, when he wasn't a brat. Cora had this thing she said about him, how did it go?

"_There was once a little boy who lived in the forest. And when he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was bad, he was awful."_

"My parents follow me around everywhere."

"Oh?"

"So does Jakey."

"I see," he said, even though he didn't know who Jakey was. "Don't you want them to?"

She frowned at him, picking up all her little white stick people and strategically placing them around the house. "_No_. I'm almost _nine_. I can _do _things on my _own_," she said defiantly. She stabbed a stick person into the ground, outside the hut.

"You should tell them that," he ventured after a while.

"_No_," she said after a while. "…they'd get more worried."

It was a tragic thing, little girls who weren't allowed to grow up. Even though they were trying so hard. He hoped, in a way, that she stayed that way. Because if she grew up enough, she'd wonder if her family had room for her actual personality.

"Well," he said. "I know you'll figure it out."

"You can't know that," she said sadly. "Nobody can tell the future 'cept Aunt Alice."

"Ah-ah," he said, prompting her to look up again, her shiny metal curls falling in front of her face. "I'm a magic forest man, remember?" He tapped the side of his head. "You don't know all of the things I can do."

She smiled, this beautiful sort of toothy smile with sparkly eyes. "I – "

"Renesmee! Oh, oh sweetie! There you are! Oh, I was so _worried _about you!"

The pretty brown-headed vampire girl sped through the trees, and in a blink Renesmee was cradled up in her arms, held to her chest protectively. "Oh, Renesmee," she said breathlessly, which was a little unnecessary.

"Mommy!" the girl chirped, seeming genuinely happy to see her mother. She touched a tiny, pale, chubby hand to her face. A few seconds later Bella was cooing at her and bouncing her up and down. The red-headed man stood a foot away from her, smiling widely.

Glenwood was not a very mean person. He tried not to be. And it was a very sweet, very loving family.

But when they'd left, and Cora had come to sit down next to him, he remarked quietly, "I think they are smothering that tiny person to death, Cora."

And she just shook her head and told him, "You try having loving parents."

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry. I took issue with almost everything in the fourth book, which was kind of unintentionally hilarious, but most of all with the way the little girl was treated. OH LOOK THEY CREATED A HYBRID MARY SUE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS HAHAHA IT'S SO INTERESTING I'M GOING TO WRITE A CHAPTER ABOUT HER GIGGLING.

A girl expected to be the light of her parents' lives, the center of everyone's attention, protected from everyone and everything. There is no way to mature faster than is normal, because while nature is certainly part of a personality, nurture is just as significant. Having no life experience outside that of your family, in the period of a few months, does not make you at all mature, despite your cognitive abilities. I know that Meyer is no biologist, but it's a kind of sickening concept, presenting it as a positive thing.

Yeah, yeah, I'll update Rain Shadow. That just takes longer since it takes more effort.

So yeah. Bye y'all.

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